reviews – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com The best place on earth for nerds. Mon, 15 Aug 2016 13:41:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cropped-nerds_head_thumb2-100x100.png reviews – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com 32 32 All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, under one umbrella. We create short run podcasts for nerds, covering D&D, Marvel, Starfinder, and more! You vote for your favorite shows and they just might get a second season. reviews – Nerds on Earth false episodic reviews – Nerds on Earth jason.sansbury@nerdsonearth.com podcast All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, the best place on Earth for nerds. reviews – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/noe-podcast-logo.png https://nerdsonearth.com/blog/ Square Enix Returns to Form with I Am Setsuna, for Better or Worse https://nerdsonearth.com/2016/08/square-enix-returns-form-setsuna-better-worse/ Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:55:29 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=8748 i am setsuna

Nerds on Earth reviews Square Enix's I Am Setsuna.

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i am setsuna
I am setsuna I'm fine
At least Setsuna has realistic expectations about the quality of her game.

Being the nerds we are, we all remember the glory days of Square and Enix. We’ve all spent countless hours with one or more of their classic RPGs, ripping through hordes of slimes in Dragon Quest/Warrior, discovering the secrets of the Lifestream with Cloud and the other members of Avalanche in Final Fantasy VII, or traveling throughout time fighting against the apocalypse itself in Chrono Trigger.

As memorable as these adventures were, they were all quite some time ago. In more recent memory, Square Enix, henceforth known as Squeenix, has moved farther away from those grand adventures, spending more of their time publishing titles from old Eidos properties and putting

tokyo rpg factory logo
Wonder what these guys are gonna make?

out more experimental entries from their own classic lines, such as the massive online Final Fantasies XI and XIV, or the multiplayer focused mobile release of Dragon Quest IX. Throughout all of it, though, it was obvious that people yearned for the days of yore, and Squeenix was not deaf to the cries of their fans.

More and more they’ve been working on rereleases and updates of their older titles, culminating in the upcoming remake of Final Fantasy VII. Along with this nostalgia driven initiative, Squeenix announced in 2015 the establishment of a new studio known simply as Tokyo RPG Factory, alongside the announcement of their first game, known at the time as Project Setsuna.

Now, just over a year later, we get to see the fruits of their labor with the release of I Am Setsuna.

I Am Setsuna: Chrono Trigger‘s Influence

I am setsuna damage
It always feels good watching damage numbers just fly off enemies in rapid succession.

The most obvious influence in the design of I Am Setsuna is Chrono Trigger. The character design shows some of this influence, as one character actually wears a jacket with a frog’s head as the hood, but that is the only overt callback as far as the party’s look is concerned.

More than anything, the core of the gameplay is almost an exact copy of Chrono Trigger. The characters travel around an open world as giant sized avatars of themselves, the three current chosen party members walking in a line behind whichever character is in the prime position.

No fights occur in the overworld, though there are some items to pick up, represented as small motes of light on the ground, so it’s not completely uneventful. When loaded into a town or dungeon, the monsters can be seen walking around on the map, allowing players to attempt to gain advantage in an encounter by sneaking up on a foe, or even entirely avoiding a fight by skirting around the edge of a monsters patrol area. Within the fights, just like in Chrono Trigger, positioning is important when it comes to AoE spells and attacks, even though the player has no direct input over where their characters move.

Each character has their own unique spells and abilities, and multiple characters may combine specific abilities with each other to perform combo maneuvers. In fact, in the most direct reference to Chrono Trigger of the whole game, the very first combo you gain access to is X-Strike. While it’s not an entirely original system, the combo maneuvers do allow for a wide variety of tactics to be employed in combat, especially when combined with the various passive abilities you can equip on your characters.

I Am Setsuna: What Sets It Apart

I am sestuna magic consortium
Monsters don’t drop money, instead dropping various materials you can sell to Magic Consortium reps, earning money to buy weapons and items, as well as unlocking new spritnites.

While many comparisons may be drawn between I Am Setsuna and Chrono Trigger, there are some big differences as well. In I Am Setsuna, what abilities you have access to and what passive skills you have active is determined by equipment called spritnites, supposedly some sort of small stones charges with magical energy.

The equipment in this game is simplified when compared to some of the older JRPGs, as each character equips a weapon to attack with, a talisman which grants passive buffs and slots for spritnites, and then the spritnites themselves. This means that early on you may have to make some hard decisions as to which abilities you want to take into battle with you, as you will not have enough slots to take everything you have found. This is less of a concern later on, as late game talismans tend to have more slots, and characters also gain more slots permanently just by leveling up.

Also, while each character has completely unique spell and ability spritnites, you will also want to use some of your slots for the universal support spritnites, which grant various passive buffs such as increasing magical attack damage or allowing a character to regain HP or MP when defeating enemies. All this works together to allow for a fun and varied combat system. Unfortunately, that is about the most variety you will find in this game.

I am setsuna boss
I’m sure he just wants to talk.

I Am Setsuna: Final Thoughts

I Am Setsuna starts with real promise. It opens on your main character Endir, a masked mercenary, fighting in a snowy wooded setting. After dispatching some small enemies, you are approached by a mysterious figure who hires you to go to small northern village and kill the person known as “the sacrifice”. It seems like a nice change of pace for a seemingly traditional JRPG, letting you start in a more villainous role.

Of course, within five minutes, you meet her, end up saving her village from some monsters, change your mind about your job, then travel along on a merry adventure to get her to some mystical land so she can sacrifice herself to stave off the monsters assaulting people around the world, building a band of colorful misfits along the way.

One thing that doesn’t change, however, is the snow. One of the most memorable parts of Chrono Trigger is the wildly varying landscapes you visit as you travel to different periods throughout time. In I Am Setsuna, it’s always snowing, all the time, everywhere. Even when it comes to the dungeons, there are about 3 tile sets repeated over and over again.

As if that weren’t enough, right before the end of the game, instead of making more dungeons with the same tile sets, you are forced to backtrack to the last 3 or 4 villages you visited for various reasons before you can progress. Of course, this then leads you to get *SPOILERS* your airship *SPOILERS* so you can fly across the whole world map, confirming that yes, it’s all just snow.

I am setsuna airship
I did say spoilers, right?

I don’t want to put down the game too much. I did enjoy the time I spent playing I Am Setsuna, other than the uneventful walking back over the world map during that backtracking section.

The combat system was wonderfully put together, though by the end I had figured out the right combo of passive abilities and spells to allow me to use a single combo move to wipe out every single normal encounter in one shot and get back all my MP, which made for easy grinding for experience and materials.

The characters are well realized, if a little stereotypical, and their designs are well varied and quite detailed. I also did enjoy the way that you always know when somebody will become a party member, because as soon as you meet them you get to decide if you want to change their name or not, a feature lost to JRPGs with the dawn of full voice acting.

This game felt like it would be a good single world in a larger Chrono Trigger type adventure, and whether or not that’s worth $40 is up to the individual. I’m glad I spent my time on it, and who knows, it may make it onto my top 10 list at the end of the year. We’ll see how the Fall and Holiday seasons go.

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Purge: Election Year Is Loud, Violent, and Far Better Than I Expected https://nerdsonearth.com/2016/07/purge-election-year/ Sun, 17 Jul 2016 15:35:22 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=8211

[tw-divider]Nerds On Earth Reviews The Purge: Election Year[/tw-divider] The Purge: Election Year is a busy movie. In a little over 100 minutes, it builds a biting criticism of American culture, including crime, poverty, gun ownership, religion, and Florida’s importance in national elections. It’s a huge, bloody, over-the-top stylistic explosion with, at best, a feeble grasp of the concept of […]

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[tw-divider]Nerds On Earth Reviews The Purge: Election Year[/tw-divider]

The Purge: Election Year is a busy movie. In a little over 100 minutes, it builds a biting criticism of American culture, including crime, poverty, gun ownership, religion, and Florida’s importance in national elections. It’s a huge, bloody, over-the-top stylistic explosion with, at best, a feeble grasp of the concept of subtlety. As an action vehicle, Election Year is exciting, loud, and fun. As a social commentary, it’s unapologetic and obvious. There’s no way to ignore the message that writer/director James DeMonaco is trying to convey. I don’t think this is a bad thing–District 9 is one of my favorite movies, and it’s about as subtle as a fish to the face.

Pictured: A nuanced exploration of 21st-century America.

Purge: EY is the third movie in the Purge series, and like the first two, is written and directed by DeMonaco. The premise is simple: 20-odd years ago, the New Founding Fathers of America created the Purge, where, one night a year, all laws turn off, and people can go bananas, killing, looting, and generally misbehaving (the idea being that they “purge” all of the wickedness they’re keeping bottled up, and thus can be pretty chill for the other 364 days of the year).

Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell) is running for President to end the practice, which she claims disproportionately affects poorer, minority communities. It’s the first of this movie’s many, many bits of social commentary (many of which are offered in an expository newscast that’s so hilariously obvious it verges on self-parody). This puts a target on her back, and the movie follows her, her bodyguard (Frank Grillo), and a ragtag team of civilians trying to survive Neo-Nazi mercenaries, crazed Russians, and angry schoolgirls.

I don’t think Election Year is going to be held up as one of the greats in the canon of American filmmaking, but I do think it’s a movie that’s better–at least, more entertaining–than it has any right to be. For all the absurdities inherent in the premise (so, if all crime is legal on Purge Night, are there a lot of embezzlers and white collar criminals cheating on their taxes? What happens to the global stock market if inner-city infrastructure gets destroyed once a year? If you shoot somebody, but they don’t die until the Purge is over, is that still a crime?), it’s a tremendously striking film. The visuals, especially the costumes, look like a cross between Fury Road and a My Chemical Romance video. Throughout the movie, little glimpses of the horrors of Purge Night deepen the sense of mass hysteria and go a long way toward establishing a very tense, creepy mood.

If I don’t see at least three of these mute Daft Punk/Lady Liberties at Dragon*Con, I’m going to be very disappointed.

DeMonaco’s script is competent, although I doubt it would hold up to any sort of rigorous analysis. It’s formulaic, but rarely boring, and there are moments (most of them from Mykelti Williamson, who looks like he’s having a great time) that break the tension and add a little bit of unpredictable levity to an otherwise grim, nightmarish story. All of the actors deliver their lines with scene-chewing relish, especially Brittany Mirabile, who manages to make party lights and candy bars terrifying.

If you read my last breathless, desperate article, you’ll remember I mentioned Election Year as a film that presented viewers with “the implied or explicit collapse of civilization.” It’s definitely a movie of the times, playing on the current uncertainty in the political atmosphere, the fear and general craziness that’s making this summer seem even more stifling than normal. That’s nothing new; there’s a long tradition, going back to The Day the Earth Stood Still, of science fiction movies offering social criticism masquerading as pop entertainment.

That film is also part of the equally long tradition of disappointing remakes.

Election Year joins Hunger Games (and its many imitators) as a recent film that attempts to address our country’s fascination with violence, and that aspect of the movie is remarkably successful. Again and again, violent imagery is blended with either a frat-boy party atmosphere or religious iconography. It’s exaggerated, of course, but it rings truer than I’d like (then again, maybe I just need to stop reading the news). As ludicrous as the whole idea is, there’s a spooky amount of verisimilitude in the whole thing.

Am I saying that we’re one election away from a Purge Night of our own? Of course not. Purge: Election Year is far-fetched and implausible. But so were 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, and we would still do well to heed those warnings. These are volatile times, and a movie like this is a glimpse of one future, one where we let the worst in us overpower the best.

It’s not the policy here at Nerds On Earth to offer depressing, sobering, and grim portents of the days to come. As an apology, I offer my third-favorite comic book panel of all time: Batman preparing to taser-punch a crippled man.

Purge and Purify, everybody!

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Agents of SHIELD S2E10 Review: What They Become https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/12/agents-shield-s2e10-review-become/ https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/12/agents-shield-s2e10-review-become/#comments Thu, 11 Dec 2014 16:26:43 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=927

Nerds on Earth reviews Marvel's Agents of SHIELD S2E10 episode: What They Become.

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So the buzz on this week’s mid-season finale of Agents of SHIELD: What They Become has me pretty pumped, as I can’t watch it when it is live each week during the winter. And with Agent Carter taking its place until March, this is going to be an interesting episode to watch and dissect.

Spoilers ahead!

agents-of-shield-s2e10-what-they-become
Agents of SHIELD: What They Become begins we see the Hydra plane fly away from the SHIELD plane. Agent May jumps into action, dive bombing the SHIELD Bus into cloud cover, deploying missle deflectives, then cloaking at the last minute.  They then high tail it to Puerto Rico, where May and Coulson try and figure out why Ward took Skye with him.  Coulson then directs Agent Morse to double back to her contact Diego to keep the entrance to the city hidden, putting more value on stopping Hydra than helping Mack.

Agents Triplett and one of the Koenigs go over a plan to use old school detonators to make sure the city falls in, as they don’t want be disrupted by electronic issues.  The problem is that they also have to be set manually.

Fitz and Simmons are working over some possible scenarios that Mack was attacked by the city as part of a watch system, maybe using the same defenses that the Obelisk has exhibited. Simmons proposes that Mack was just enlisted into the city’s defenses instead of being killed.

Morse and Hunter then huddle as she was clearly looking for something in Mack’s garage.  Morse is sure that she has killed Mack but Hunter says that maybe he has survived.  Morse pockets a thumb drive and Hunter calls her out on it, but goes to suit up as her back-up anyways.

Agent May and Coulson are then debriefing what happens, with him praising her for keeping the team alive, even as she just wants to point out that killing Ward, then being blown up may have kept Hydra from Raina and Skye, who they need to enter the city. Coulson talks about how Skye is prepared for the mission at hand, in part because of May having trained her.

Ward and Skye are then shown together and Ward fulfills his promise, introducing her to her father. Her dad makes an impassioned speech, introducing himself as Cal. Skye remains until she calls him out for how she has been kidnapped to be brought to him. He admits that this isn’t the way that he wanted this to go. Skye talks about how all she knows about him is his murderous ways, which he blames on when she was stolen from him as an infant.  That trauma changed him.  He then talks about how things were in her early life in China. He apologizes not being there and not being able to protect her but asking for a second chance to take care of her.  But when she asks for help to escape, he tells her that she is exactly where she needs to be, to fulfill her destiny.

In Puerto Rico, Diego leads Hydra away but not before giving Agent Morse a message.

Skye is being held hostage, as when she tries to leave, her dad says that he doesn’t really work for Whitehall, that he just used Whitehall to find her. He then confesses that her mother was “special” with a gift and that he has brought her here to experience the transformation that has to happen. Skye then pushes to find out about her mom, when he shares that a group of men took her and that he tracked her to Europe, leaving Skye in China.  He found that Whitehall had experimented with her, taking her organs and blood. He then found his wife dead in a ditch.  As Skye’s dad hums a tune, she recognizes it, and he confesses that it is a song that her mother used to sing to her.  When Whitehall summons him, he promises to kill Whitehall for destroying his life.

AgentsOfShield_Trip_1280-720x405The plan is in place to bring down the city, with Coulson, May and Trip going into the city to place the bombs with Fitz and Simmons, as Koenig makes jokes about how his brother is recuperating. Coulson orders the brothers back, as Morse calls in the information of Hydra being present and where they are.  When they line up the maps, they discover the Hydra may be going directly through the rock into the chamber in the center of the city.

Whitehall then gathers Ward, Raina and Cal, wanting to know why Skye is present.  He then presents the Obelisk, and Skye has to pick it up, which then glows, before she starts taking people out by touching them with it.  In the midst of the standoff, Whitehall says that he hopes she is as special as her mother.  Whitehall then says that he figured out who Cal was, and Raina says that Ward is here because of love for Skye.  Cal is knocked unconscious and Ward is locked up under heavy guard.

Coulson, Morse, May and Hunter then get ready to take on Hydra and stop their drill while Trip, Fitz and Simmons go down into the city.

Agent 33 and Ward then have a conversation, with Ward comparing his mentor to Doctor Whitehall.  Whitehall is then using some kind of device to eliminate Cal when he tried to attack Whitehall.  Whitehall wants to run experiments on Skye to see if she has the same gift as her mom, aging slowly.  As he is about to start, SHIELD arrives and things break loose.  Ward tries to talk his way out of it when Cal gets the device out of his neck, takes out the guard and then heads towards Whitehall solo.

Trip and Simmons and Fitz then have to split up to place the bombs because it was taking them longer. Fitz leaves the budding lovebirds on one team as he heads in the other direction.

As Cal gets to Whitehall, Coulson puts a bullet into Whitehall, but Cal’s reaction isn’t one of gratitude.  As he confirms that Whitehall is dead, he threatens Coulson, who promises to not let Cal take Skye into the city.  Agent 33 then finds Whitehall’s body, and is clearly distraught.  Cal and Coulson have snuck away during the action and engaged in a battle, when Ward, having freed Skye, turns his back and is met with three shots from Skye.  Skye then stops Cal from killing Coulson and says that she won’t do what he wants, she won’t ever go into the city and that she will make the Obelisk secure.  She then offers Cal a chance to go away.  After a speech and revealing her name to be Daisy, Cal walks away.  Skye quickly tries to help Coulson, crying as she confesses to not being able to kill her dad.  She promises to get the Obelisk and make things better, even as Coulson pleads with her not to.

Agent 33 then finds Ward and the two of them form a partnership and sneak away together.

When Skye finds the empty case, she knows Raina has entered the city.  When Raina finds Mack, he is clearly under control and she directs him to take her to the temple.

Coulson and May figure out what has happened as well. Coulson then goes down into the city to find Skye.  May is given the task of rounding everyone up and getting them out before the city blows.  When he hears that Skye and Coulson are down in the city, he leaves Fitz and Simmons to go to help them.

Raina has arrived at the temple and Coulson is looking for Skye, who has discovered Mack, who she can’t reach.  She promises to come back for him.  Raina and Skye then meet up in the temple.  Trip is hunting the bombs to disable them and he has 3 out of 4 done as Raina gives a speech about how the Obelisk gives new life.  The Obelisk then floats.  Trip disables the last bomb with a second to spare.

agents of shield s2e10Coulson then runs into Mack and once Coulson has slowed him down, he gets to the Temple as it is closing.  Trip did make it in however, trying to rescue Skye.  As the Obelisk is adapting and growing, Mack comes to Coulson, only to be dropped out of the trance at the last second.  As Raina and Skye are both encased in the kind of material the Obelisk has done all season.  Trip then kicks the Obelisk but not before they are both encased.  Trip is distraught at what he sees and the loose pieces of the Obelisk embedded in him then encase him as well.  But Raina and Skye are then shown to be shedding the material around them.  Skye then unleashes her powers, shaking out of the cocoon and shaking the whole temple, as she sees Trip, mourning his death.

The last scene shows a man with no eyes on a phone call to someone.  He has an Obelisk that is glowing, talking to someone saying to tell the others that there is someone new.

8 out of 8 nerds

 

This episode is a fantastic 8 out of 8 nerds.
The highlights:

  • Skye is revealed to be Daisy Johnson, aka Quake from the existing Marvel Universe.  While they have tweaked the backstory some, they have gotten the character into a similar position: a powered agent of SHIELD!  (Her powers involve seismic activity).  The backstory still seems to lead into the Inhumans stuff that they have played with and it makes you wonder what may happen between now and then with Skye.  (That movie is several Shield seasons away).
  • And her dad is essentially Mister Hyde.  They did a great job hinting that Cal has powers and he kept refraining from using them because he didn’t want his daughter to see him that way.  I love that idea of a scientist driven mad by his powers and his past who is still wandering around.  I look forward to seeing him again, especially since the creative team have talked about how much the actor portraying him as brought to the role.
  • RIP Trip.  Just this week Earth Nerd Clave and I were texting about how much we have both have come to love Trip.  It should have been a dead giveaway that in a Whedon affiliated show that he was doomed to die.  His sacrifice as a noble one. I guess there is still an outside chance that Skye somehow miraculously shakes him free but it looks like the end of the SHIELD road for him.
  • They dangled enough plots for the second half of the season.  The questions include; What is Raina’s power going to be and how will she use it?  Ward and Agent 33 becoming a ragtag vigilante type group?  And will Ward forgive Skye for shooting him?  What are Mack and Morse working on and why are they keeping it a secret?  And lastly, who are the other Inhumans, especially the guy who no eyes who “sees”.  How many more are there?
    All in all, this was a magnificent episode in terms of wrapping up some major story lines but setting some  great things to explore in the future!

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Agents of SHIELD S2E9 Review: Ye Who Enter Here https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/12/agents-shield-s2e9-review-ye-enter/ Sat, 06 Dec 2014 14:59:06 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=903

Nerds on Earth reviews Marvel's Agents of SHIELD S2E9 episode: Ye Who Enter Here.

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It’s time to review this week’s Marvel’s Agents of Shield Episode: Ye Who Enter Here. After last week’s Agents of SHIELD, which led us to the gates of the mysterious city, are we ready to see peek inside?

**Spoilers ahead!**

marvels-agents-of-shield-ye-who-enter-here

This week’s episode of Agents of SHIELD s2e9 episode opens with Skye in a dream, running down a hall, calling out Coulson’s name.  Eventually she winds up in a room with a music box.  She sees Coulson and May abandon a baby as May calls it fruit from the poisoned tree.  When Skye touches the music box, it attacks her the way the Obelisk has attacked people this season.  Coulson wakes her from her dream and tells her to grab her gear and get ready for a debrief.

At the headquarters, Mack is playing with a remote control version of Coulson’s red convertible when Fitz finds him and asks for his help talking with Simmons. Meanwhile, Simmons is patching up Tripplet’s wound and Skye walks in as he is explaining to Simmons how crazy her dad was.  Skye agrees and she is trying to shake the vibe that something bad is about to happen. Simmons and Triplett are trying to give her a pep talk as they head to a debrief.

Coulson is explaining to everyone about the mission: Hydra has the Obelisk and someone who knows how to use it, as Mockingbird says that she and Simmons know that Doctor Whitehall was looking to create an event that would kill millions of people. (If it was dozens, they would just let the upcoming Netflix Defenders team deal with it.)  But the Obelisk is more like a key to the weapon, which is going to be found in the city that Coulson has been scratching out until recently.  They are hoping because they know where the city is that they can beat Hydra there; the city is near San Juan, Puerto Rico, which is a very convenient location for the cast and crew of a certain television show to get some vacation.

MING-NA WEN, CHLOE BENNETWe then find Raina using her gifts on some sucker who is paying for her hunt around the city when Fake Agent May (Agent 33) returns, showing off her scar and letting Raina know that Doctor Whitehall is on to her.  As Raina is trying to get away in the city, the Koenigs help her.  (Patton Oswald is the best for these characters!)  After getting her a get away with a really fun umbrella of invisibility, Sam Koenig takes her picture, because she is going to need a lanyard.

Koenig(s) then debrief that Hydra seemed to be trying to capture Raina and not kill her.  So Coulson decides to send some help to get her, while Skye and May see that the evidence is that Ward’s brother didn’t just die in a suicide, and they both know and believe that Ward is responsible.  Coulson then breaks the group into two teams: one to get to the temple, one to go get Raina.  Skye seems shaken that she isn’t on the temple team but Coulson explains to May that he isn’t worried about her but her dear old psychopathic dad.

Simmons and Morse then have a conversation about her relationship with Fitz, with Simmons revealing that his confession of her love and his 9 day coma and brain damage. She talks about wanting her best friend back, but never as a lover. Morse then talks about how her relationships are always a roller coaster and she isn’t sure how it will end.  She encourages Simmons to come clean with Fitz before nonchalantly telling her ex-husband that he shouldn’t die on his mission when she sees him in the hall.  (His reply of “It’s Canada” was the best line of the episode.)  Simmons give Triplett a little head nod and Skye breaks protocol giving Coulson a hug as they head out.

Mack then has a conversation with Morse about whether or not she has brought Hunter in on “the other thing”, which she says to keep him unaware of.

Sam Koenig is then saved by Hunter and May drops two more Hydra agents.  Skye then rendezvouses with Billy Koenig and Raina before being attacked by Agent 33 in the hallway.  Skye has definitely learned how to be a better agent, holding her own as Billy and Raina are able to get away.  Eventually Agent 33 gets the upperhand, after Skye hesitates in the fight and offers SHIELD’s help for her.  Hunter is able to come in and save the day but is a bit freaked out by May’s Evil Twin.

In Puerto Rico, Morse and Coulson talk about having been here before and their favorite restaurants and Coulson discovers that he isn’t a hat guy.  They then talk about whether they are really there to destroy the weapon or recover it.  Coulson talks about the reason he is here is to save people. Fitz and Simmons are there to figure out the way to bury the city with minimal damage and Morse is there to be his shotgun in case the scalpel doesn’t work.

Mack then leaves Fitz and Simmons alone in the Quinjet.  Simmons is in the middle of explaining her departure as an undercover agent when Fitz announces that he is leaving, giving Simmons the head of the lab duties.  Fitz says he can work for her but not with her.  She is clearly torn up about it.

Morse and Coulson do some location scouting on the city entrances.

Skye and Raina talk about how they used her as bait and Skye lets Raina know that Hydra has the Obelisk.  Raina reveals that she can hold the Obelisk.  When Skye questions her, Raina reveals that when she holds it, it guides her.  Raina says that Skye’s dad is convinced she can touch it too.  Raina says that is their destiny and then runs towards the Hydra agents but May rolls up in a black van and runs into them, loading up everyone in the van. Agent 33 then reports to Whitehall that they have lost Raina but that they may can track her because of a device SHIELD put in her.

agents-of-shield-ye-who-enter-hereThe Koenigs and Trip then have a conversation, where Trip tries to figure out how many of them there are.  They jokingly convince him that there are 13 of them.  May then checks in with Coulson and relays what Skye has learned.   Morse then reports that there is a legend of a guardian on the city and that the locals are scared away. As Mack and Fitz cut their way into the hole, Simmons relays the myth of disappearing guards from long ago at the spot.  Fitz then deploys a bunch of drones to size up the tunnel and when explaining it to Coulson, the drones quit working.

Skye and Raina are then talking about her dad on the plane.  Raina reveals that Skye’s dad discovered her, helped her get off the street and give her guidance. Raina also says that Skye is all her dad has ever wanted. Raina explains that she and Skye aren’t alien just people with special gifts.  Raina then reiterates the blue angel myth and for the first time calls them the Kree. Raina then says that the temple will defend itself against those it doesn’t deem as worthy and that the Obelisk is a guide.

Mack then gets ready to head down into the tunnel to repair the drones and Skye wants to contact them to tell them not to go in, when Doctor Whitehall comes over the PA and says he will shoot them out of the sky.  And, unfortunately, it appears that he is blocking communications.  He says that he is sending over someone to get Raina.  Mack makes it to the bottom of the tunnel, discovering that his radio isn’t working and that the drones are down in the dust.  As he rubs an etching in the floor, something attacks his hand and he is clearly in pain.  The team at the top manages to get Mack to the top but he isn’t able to communicate with them, but then something takes over and Mack drops Coulson with a super punch.

HENRY SIMMONS, IAIN DE CAESTECKER, ELIZABETH  HENSTRIDGEOn the plane, we discover that Whitehall is sending Ward over to pick up Raina. Raina is willing to go and Ward offers Skye the chance to come along as well, so he can fulfill his promise of introducing her to her father.  Ward says the deal is off is Skye doesn’t come.  May is trying desperately to get Skye not to trust Ward.  Koenig reminds us all that Ward killed one of his brothers.  Skye decides to come with Ward and Raina makes sure that Skye brings the map of the city.

Morse is trying to talk Mack out of whatever has possessed him, as he has gone all “Hulk Smash”, even surviving several rounds from the knockout gun that Coulson puts in him.  As Mack is fighting everyone, Coulson winds up holding Simmons as she was nearly falling down the tunnel shaft and Fitz hesitates shooting Mack with real bullets.  Morse then hits him with tasers in her staffs, he falls down the tunnel and Coulson immediately orders them to seal the tunnel, much to Morse’s dismay.

Whitehall and Agent 33 meet up and we discover that Ward has gone renegade on him, bringing Skye on board and not taking out the Shield plane.  Whitehall then orders Ward’s plane be shot down.

7 out of 8 nerds

 

 

 

I give this episode 7 out of 8 Nerds.

Things I am thinking about the series based on this episode:

  • First off, the cast and crew of the show have improved the fight scenes on this show immeasurably since last season.  Last year, the fights created moments where I wanted to roll my eyes and this year, the fight have been great, innovative, well shot and believable.  Especially in the Agent 33 and Skye fight and possessed Mack’s fight with everyone
  • Second, strictly from a show running perspective, it is genius to make Agent 33 into Mays evil twin.  You got a great actress with range already on the payroll.  Give her more to do!  They aren’t even trying to switch up the voice.  Financially and storytelling wins there!
  • Third, someone needs to write up some fan fiction about Morse’s Puerto Rican friend Diego. And his sister Dora.  And how they save the island from the evil Hydra agent Swiper.
  • Lastly, and this one really is stunning: It appears that they are going to let things that happen in the show have an impact in the Marvel Cinematic Universe! One of the common criticisms of the first season of this show was that it stalled for a long time until Captain America: Winter Soldier came out.  In that movie, we learned that Hydra had infultrated and embedded agents deep in SHIELD, which was massive game changer for the television show.  You can argue that it set up the successful storytelling of this season of SHIELD, But at the time, it also seemed to dictate that the movies would impact the show and not the other way around. Why do I say this?  Mainly because this episode gives the back story of the Inhumans.  The idea of the Kree coming and pushing forward a certain genetic segment of the population is the essential set-up for the Inhumans, which is a now scheduled movie in the Marvel universe. This gets me excited from a variety of perspectives. One, better long term storytelling in the television show.  No more forced waits until the big reveal in the movies.  Two, the show might last longer.  I haven’t looked at the ratings of the show, but if Disney and Marvel executives see the television show as a vital and useable piece in the movie universe, maybe ratings don’t matter as much, and this is a piece of your billion dollar movie empire that you can help prop up financially.  And this season has been so much better that I would love to see it continue for many seasons!

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The Walking Dead Episode 508 Review: Coda https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/12/walking-dead-episode-508-review-coda-daryl-beth/ https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/12/walking-dead-episode-508-review-coda-daryl-beth/#comments Mon, 01 Dec 2014 22:08:01 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=863

Nerds on Earth with a Walking Dead episode 508 review. Will it be guns a blazing at Grady Hospital?

The post The Walking Dead Episode 508 Review: Coda appeared first on Nerds on Earth.

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I have to say that this mid-season finale of The Walking Dead really snuck up on me.  I was unprepared for it to be here so quickly and it made me wonder how some of the loose ends would get wrapped up this week.  After last week’s episode where the band started putting it all back together to head towards a mid-season showdown with the Grady Hospital crew, this week’s episode – Coda – is where everything goes down.

As always, spoilers ahead.

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The episode opens on Lamson, the cop who knocked Sasha unconcious last episode and I have to say, for a man with his hands ziptied behind his back, he is making pretty good time. However, Rick is on his trail, first on foot and then in a patrol car. After a couple polite requests for Lamson to stop, Rick impolitely runs into him with the car. Lamson is naturally really hurt. After they banter some, Rick then summarily executes Lamson and tells his corpse to shut up.

Gabriel is then shown hopping along, coming to the school, discovering Bob’s barbequed foot there.  When the zombies break out of the school, Gabriel hauls tail back to the church, where he is locked out.  Despite the deep irony of potentially letting him die there that way, Michonne and Carl let him back in, where Michonne uses the katana well.  But they are quickly overrun.  Gabriel leads them back to the office, and then holds the door so Carl and Michonne can leave.  As he goes to run, a zombie falls and impales herself on the machete he used to pry up the floorboards and make his escape passage.  They then lock the zombies inside the church.

Rick and Daryl are then huddling, talking about what to do now that they are down a cop.  They concoct a plan saying that Lamson was killed by what Team Grady calls “rotters” and they both are willing to play along.  It seems like this is their only option, unless it’s to go in guns blazing.

Back at the hospital. Dawn is getting in some cardio on a sweet recumbent bike, while trying to get anyone to respond to her on the radio. Beth is cleaning up and points out the picture of Captain Hansen, her mentor that we learn she ultimately had to betray. Dawn then talks about how you don’t need the love of the people she leads, she just needs their respect, for now and for the moments when she needs them to have her back, or else everyone and everything goes down.

Gabriel explains he had to see the school for himself.  (I think this one little line does much to put Gabriel in a better context and I will explain why later.)  As they watch the walkers prepare to bust out of the church, along comes Team DC, who park the firetruck, blocking in the walkers.  They then all share what they know, from Eugene being a fraud, to Beth being alive at Grady.  They then all suit up to go help with the rescue of Carol and Beth in the hospital.

Beth then watches as Officer O’Donnell pushes around the old man who helped her previously.  He is about to call on her as well when Dawn says that she needs Beth’s help. Next, it’s Beth sitting at the edge of the elevator shaft, possibly thinking about jumping to her death.  When Dawn tries to state the current state of things are only temporary, Beth gives her a quick, sudden and harsh reality check: the world is never going to get better.  This is all that it is.  Dawn asserts that Beth owes her several times over for favors, when Officer O’Donnell shows back up and accuses Dawn of cracking just like her mentor Hanson did.  After some banter about how Dawn is going to protect the weak, O’Donnell attacks her.  It’s clear that her hard work on the recumbent bike has paid off,  and she eventually sets up Beth to push O’Donnell down the elevator shaft.

Walking-Dead-Coda-7Later, Beth is in Carol’s hospital room and accuses Dawn of not trying to help others but simply using what she has to protect herself. Beth thinks that everyone in the hospital just uses people to get what they want.  Beth then says that she will get out, just like Noah did, when Dawn says that he will be back because eventually, everyone has come back.

Sasha and Tyrese talk about their past and how they both have hesitated in a moment.  Tyrese confesses to not having finished Martin when he had the chance, who Sasha later had to kill.  After a sibling moment, Sasha thinks that while Tyrese may be a good, loving man, she isn’t sure about herself anymore.  Below them, Rick is negotiating to meet with Dawn and make the prisoner exchange when Sasha quietly snipers a zombie nearby, disrupting the cops Rick was talking to.

Inside the hospital, they are going to meet up in a corridor to make the exchange. They all holster their weapons. The captured officers hold to the story of Lamson being eaten by zombies when they are swapped and Dawn says some words about Lamson.  As they settle on a prisoner for prisoner swap, all seems well with the world as they are about to part ways…

The-Walking-Dead-Coda-6When Dawn suddenly says that Noah has to stay with them.  This infuriates Rick, who feels like she is going back on a deal.  They argue some and Noah is willing to back to let the others go free.  Dawn then says “I knew you’d be back” and that triggers something in Beth.  She goes back to hug Noah and then suddenly pulls some scissors she stashed in her cast earlier and stabs Dawn.  Dawn then draws and kills Beth with a shot to the head.  A heartbroken Daryl quickly shots and kills Dawn.  And in what looks like it may turn into a modern OK Corral stops when the formerly captive woman cop talks everyone down; there will be no more retaliation and Daryl weeps.  They offer the group the chance to stay in the hospital but they decline and as they exit the building, Maggie arrives just in time to see her dead sister being carried out in the arms of Daryl.

8 out of 8 nerds

 
This episode is a solid 8 out of 8 Nerds.

Some thoughts:

  • I have to say, I have been flummoxed by people saying that Beth’s death was a cheap stunt for the midseason.  I could not disagree more.  One of the things that we have seen with Beth over the seasons has been her growth into a person who stands up for others, willing to do whatever it takes to protect them.  Her willingness to strike out to save Noah didn’t seem false to me in any way given her character arc.  While I am sad to see her go, I think it is what her character would do and it appeared that Dawn drew and fired out of instinct.
  • The end of the episode was emotional, particularly with Daryl’s heartache and response, then realizing that Maggie was going to have gone from thinking her sister was alive to seeing her recently killed sister in the span of a couple hours.  I do think that they haven’t done much to play up Maggie and Beth’s relationship but I wonder too if there wasn’t supposed to be communicated in Maggie’s quietness some sense of loss.  Maybe we as the audience didn’t quite feel it.
  • And as for Gabriel…I really do think he starts to make sense.  From our perspective, the Rick Grimes extended family are the good guys and why wouldn’t anyone trust them?  But from his perspective, these are crazy people he doesn’t know who killed a bunch of people in his church.  I think the assumption was made that he knew about the whacky cannibalistic ways of the Terminus people but maybe he didn’t. Going to the school makes sense from the standpoint that he needed to see some real tangible proof.  While I don’t think that it will make him a suddenly adept hard fighting warrior, I do think he is a part of the group for the long term.
  • The closing finale scene showed Morgan wandering around and eventually coming on the church, and discovering with great interest the note Abraham had left Rick saying that the world definitely needed Rick Grimes in it.  So, it looks like we will see him in the second half season.  I do wonder what his state of being will be.  When we last saw him, he wasn’t exactly stable and there is no telling what direction they push this story this year.

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The Walking Dead Episode 507 Review: Crossed https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/11/walking-dead-episode-507-review-crossed/ Mon, 24 Nov 2014 19:40:01 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=851

Nerds on Earth with a Walking Dead episode 507 review. Will the different groups come together to assault Grady Hospital?

The post The Walking Dead Episode 507 Review: Crossed appeared first on Nerds on Earth.

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After last week’s episode of The Walking Dead focused on Daryl, Carol and eventually Noah, this week’s episode (s5e7) – Crossed – looks to be the week where the band starts putting it all back together as they head towards a mid-season showdown with the Grady Hospital crew.

*Spoilers ahead*

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At the church, you see the team preparing for what is coming.  They are dismantling the pipe organ.  (I recoiled in horror.  We have no evidence that zombies have any ties to their previous life, but the most terrifying thing in the world would be zombie church ladies ticked off about their pipe organ being messed with.)  Sasha is working over a pew with an axe.  Outside Rick and Michonne have a discussion about who is going to be going with Daryl.  Inside, Father Gabriel asks if they are going to take the cross as well, before he begins trying to scrub out the blood stains in the church floor.

The team is then loaded up in the truck and Tyrese tries to talk to a despondent Sasha about how she is feeling about Bob’s death, but she refuses to talk with him.

Team DC gets a new name as Tara calls them GRATEM, as she fills the water bottles labeled with each of their initials (Glenn, Rosita, Abraham, Tara, Eugene, and Maggie, for those of you trying to keep track of our separated survivors).  After Rosita argues with Abraham about drinking his water, he gets up from the kneeling position he has been in, moving threateningly towards Rosita before Maggie draws her 6 shooter and forces him to back down.

In the ATL, Rick maps out a game plan based on the information that Noah has given them.  (I am not quite sure why Noah gets a pass. He went from “Guy no one knew” to “trusted confidante” in the fastest time we have seen in a while. It turns out that while Everyone Hates Chris, everyone trusts Noah.) The plan is to essentially move in quick and deadly, using their knives and silencers to take down threats.  Tyrese offers the suggestion of maybe just capturing a couple of the cops and making a trade.  Rick looks likes Tyrese has lost his mind but Daryl backs Tyrese and they seem to be moving forward with that plan.

walking dead episode 507 reviewBack at the church, Carl is trying to helpfully instruct Gabriel in learning how to survive, giving him machete lessons after Gabriel has chosen one.  But it ends quickly, as Gabriel declares himself to be ill and he retires to his office.

At Grady, we learn they are still very frustrated that they haven’t caught Noah yet.  The conversation shifts to how they are wasting resources on the patient in exam room 2, when Beth comes to what is Carol’s defense.  Dawn then says pull the plug and when the other officer leaves, she blames Beth.  Eventually, she does give Beth the drug cabinet key, saying she will have to treat Carol on her own now.

Team GRATEM then divides up, with Glenn, Tara and Rosita heading down to the creek for water with Maggie staying watch over Eugene and the still kneeling Abraham. After the others depart, Maggie takes down a ladder and sets up a tent over Eugene, who is still laying right where he was when Abraham knocked him out several episodes ago.  Maggie then explains she is heartbroken just like Abraham, sad that this is current state of things is the best it will ever get.

Beth is at the hospital and is getting the doctor to tell her what kind of medicines to use to help Carol. He figures out that Dawn has given Beth the medicine key and that it is a bad idea.  Beth makes him tell her anyways.

The team GRATEM water hunting crew discovers the water from the creek is dirty. Rosita then uses a trick Eugene taught her, involving filtering the water through a cloth, which will make it clean enough to boil.  Glenn then asks for her story, and she talks about how Abraham and she met in Dallas.  The reason that she joined him was because he said he needed her, which was the first time since the apocalypse that anyone had asked for her help.

In ATL, the bait works, as Noah is caught, proving that even on a bad leg, he can take a hit from a car better than Carol can.  After he is caught, Rick, Daryl and the team then surrounds the cops and disarms them.  In the midst one of the Grady cops recognizes that Rick used to be a cop because of how he is handling things. But just then another car rolls up, bullets fly and the now three cops get away, though not too far. They run their car into an asphalt jungle of zombies that had been bombed and are now stuck to the asphalt.  The car catches a bone and gets stuck, which leads into a foot chase.  The part we see is Daryl tracking down the late arriving cop and they get into a fist fight.  The cop has the advantage on Daryl in preparing to force feed him into the bombed zombies.  And then, it happens.  This is going to need its own paragraph…

Since the show The Walking Dead began, we have seen all kinds of strange and gruesome things.  But the most innovative and gruesome thing I think since the show began was when Daryl reached out for a living zombie, stuck his hand through its eyes and then rips the skull from the body and bludgeoned the cop off of him.  It was classic Daryl Dixon, willing to do whatever it took to survive.  It was the most unexpected move of the season. And it paid off, as Rick shows up and they take the cop captive, though Rick’s growing bloodlust was about to show itself, when Daryl pointed out that three hostages to negotiate with are better than 2.

walking dead episode 507 reviewThe reasonable cop, who we learn is Sergeant Bob Lamson, says that he know how to negotiate with Dawn and help everyone walk away from this without any more violence.  Rick seems to have a comrade-in-arms vibe with him, as Lamson, like Rick, was a cop before the apocalypse happened.

Glenn, Rosita and Tara decide they want to catch those fish, so they go back are scavenging off the bodies of zombies who were hit by a telephone poll while hiking.  They cut out the mesh liners from their coats to make nets and Tara pulls a whole backpack off them.

At the church Michonne is trying to help Father Gabriel see that the awful things that they are doing are worth it in some way.  He thanks her and excuses himself back to his office, where we see that he is using the machete to remove boards in the floor to make an escape.

At Grady, using a strawberry bribe, Beth gets someone to fake an injury so she can go get the medicine the doctor said she would need. After hooking the IV to Carol, Beth lets the still unconscious Carol know that she is there.

Walking Dead episode 507 review.In the ATL, as Sasha and Tyrese are trying to change the tire that got the bone through it on the escape cop car, she tears Bob’s army jacket and then they have a moment, as Sasha has to forgive herself for not having the strength to put Bob down herself and having Tyrese do it.

Gabriel flees out the hole, stepping on a nail in his foot, marching out the cemetery of the church into the woods.  He eventually stumbles into a zombie, who he powerslams and impales on a limb but he is unable to deliver the punishing final blow when he sees the zombie’s cross necklace.

Sgt. Bob Lamson then is talking with Sasha and talks about how hard it was to see the asphalt zombie jungle because he recognized one of the zombie as a guy who replaced him on a final run and how he would like put at least that zombie down so he can have some closure.  (The asphalt zombies were the last of the refugees who were going to Grady when they were bombed.)

Maggie and Abraham then have a conversation where she asks essentially if he was using her to commit suicide earlier.  Abraham admits that he thought he did want her to shot him.  Eugene then starts to awaken and while Maggie goes to help him, Abraham symbolically drinks the water bottle that has been beside him, essentially saying he is willing to move on.

And finally, back in the ATL, Sasha sympathizes with Lamson and has him direct her towards the zombie to take out when Lamson pushes her into the window, knocking her unconscious, before running off quickly with his hands zip tied behind his back.

7 out of 8 nerds

 

 

A solid 7 out of 8 nerds.
Some thoughts:

  • The character of Gabriel is one of the most interesting ones this season to me.  From the get-go, when Rick woke from his coma, we  saw someone adjust to this new world. But Rick was a cop, comfortable with weapons. Gabriel is like a time released reset button.  We are seeing through his eyes what is it like to have to adjust to this world.  The cocoon of his church and his partnership with Terminus spared him from those things until now.  It is a very interesting storytelling device to remind us that the world is pretty gruesome when you first encounter it.  If they hadn’t introduced him, you might lose sight of how that can look through new eyes.  (We have seen the ease that the survivors now seem to be mowing through groups of 20 or less zombies.)  And side note: Gabriel’s walkabout is probably what is going to bring Morgan back into the picture in the second half of this season.  Could even be the cliffhanger at the end of the mid-season finale.
  • If Daryl dies in this show, I may be out.  He is my favorite because of what he does but what he represents as well; he is survivor, willing to do things like use a skull as a weapon but he is also slowly and surely becoming a better man in what could be the end of the world.
  • I am worried about Rick.  His bloodlust has been growing and his solutions now almost always are “Let’s kill them all.”  He is coming up on the line that Herschel was worried about Carl being at when Carl shot the unarmed guy at the prison.
  • It was great work to do some more character development with Rosita and Tara.  Glenn is a great foil to bounce off of and hearing her backstory helps.  When Glenn says they will need her, it is a meaningful moment.  And Tara being so pumped up about a yo-yo was really funny.

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Agents of SHIELD S2E8 Review: The Things We Bury https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/11/agents-of-shield-s2e8-review-the-things-we-bury-marvel-coulson/ Wed, 19 Nov 2014 21:13:25 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=825

Nerds on Earth reviews Marvel's Agents of SHIELD S2E8 episode: The Things We Bury.

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It’s time to review this week’s Marvel’s Agents of Shield Episode: The Things We Bury. After last week’s Agents of SHIELD, which cleared the deck of dangling plots, are we ready to see what our illustrious agents have in store next?

**Spoilers ahead!**

 SHIELD Skye's Dad

This week’s Agents of SHIELD opens in a flashback in Austria in 1945.  The villian of the season – Dr. Whitehall – is there in his nazi grab forcing a man to touch the Obelisk, and watching him die.  But then a new person comes and the young woman touches it and has no problems.  They are just about to take her away for testing as to why when they get word of the Red Skull’s defeat.

In present time, we see Dr. Whitehall again but this time in a meeting with Skye’s dad.  He talks about how only a few can touch the object, and that it isn’t a weapon but rather a key to the recently revealed city that can only be touched by those who are worthy.  But if you can take it to the city, great things can happen.

Meanwhile, May is holding down the base as Coulson has taken some of the team on the cloaked plane to Hawaii.  After some banter about how Senator Christian Ward doesn’t want SHIELD chasing his fugitive brother, it is revealed that they think the key to defeating Hydra is by getting to the city first and waiting for them when Hydra finally decides to show up.

SHIELD WhitehallAt the base, Agent Morse is interrogating the recent “gift” from Ward, Dr. Whitehall’s right hand man.  She is slowly breaking him down and getting the information she needs.  As she works, Mac and Hunter discuss how Mac is more than a little freaked out about how crazy Coulson got last episode during his tantrum and hunt for the truth.  Simmons interrupts them but they turn back to Morse who is getting more information from their captive, especially as she comes out to process the information with the others.  She deduces that the captive may not have alway followed Whitehall, who has been identified as a disciple of the Red Skull.  But conveniently, their current base has tons of old records about the World War II era and following just hanging around!

Senator Ward, in an effort to remind us all that he is indeed a bad man, is on the phone scheduling a rendezvous with the woman he is having an affair with when his little brother takes out his security detail and drags his big brother out of the car.

Coulson is giving specific directions and deliveries for Triplett and Skye.  When Fitz questions him, Coulson gives him a time specific task to work on, saying that it will be vital to what comes next and that Fitz is the only one who can do it.

Agent Morse is continuing to break down what she is learning from the captive with her ex-husband, Hunter, while Simmons discovers that the founder of Shield, Agent Peggy Carter was herself also British, and responsible for files at their current base.  In the files, they find mention of the Obelisk, as well as other artifacts.

Flashback to 1945 again and Agent Peggy Carter interrogating the capture Dr. Whitehall.  She promises that he will never see the light of day again, especially with her having seen the videos and pictures he made of his “experiments.”  Whitehall then talks about how the object is part of a “star” that fell from heaven along with blue angels.

In the modern time, Skye’s dad is sharing that what Whitehall heard translated as “conquer” really should have been heard as “end.”  He thinks that the blue angels were coming to change the world, giving a few precious people the ability to survive what comes next. And so Skye’s dad doesn’t want power but rather revenge and to be reunited with his family….in the afterlife.

agents-of-shield-season-2-episode-8-christian-and-grant-wardWard is now walking his senator older brother through the woods and they talk about their past.  Both were victims of their abusive parents and the Senator tries to convince Ward that he had worked to gain Ward his freedom.  Ward stands strong, even fully admitting his own responsibility for everything he has done.  And then he wants to talk about what we learned of in season one: the Well.

Fitz is working hard at his task and he is getting a pep talk from Triplett and Skye when they learn that they are headed to Australia.  The Hawaii gifts trigger a computer shutdown at a heavily guarded facility, turning on computers at a less guarded facility in the Australian Outback that they are going to raid, hoping to gain control of a satellite network that should help them map the earth and find the city.

Simmons then discovers Whitehall’s secret, that he really is the agent from World War II.  We then get a time lapse of him aging dramatically in a cell until he is suddenly released 44 years later, presumably as Hydra gained more traction in the government and Shield.  When he returned to Austria, they managed to find the woman who could touch the object, strangely looking the same age as she had before.  He promises to do experiments on her until he finds the cure.

Using the proof of Whitehall’s age in a file, Agent Morse is giving the captive some serious interrogation breakdown, when he turns on her, saying her friends would never let her be with them if they knew what she had to do in order to join Hydra.  Then he slams his own head into the steel table, popping a cyanide capsule that was embedded in his jaw.

Meanwhile, the Senator is digging up the Well, eventually admitting to Ward that he had forced him to harm their brother Thomas, because Thomas had not been subject to the same abuse that the two of them had. The Senator apologizes and then he and Ward walk off, saying that it is time to go home.

When Coulson and team storm the Australian facility, they run into Hydra.  In the ensuing shootout, as Fitz is making the machine work, which will enable Skye to capture the satellites. Triplett gets hit.  He is saved by a doctor from the facility, who turns out to be Skye’s dad.  Only he slips up and calls Coulson by name.  He then admits that he has sabotaged Triplett, forcing Coulson to stay there and save Triplett when he runs away.  In the discussion, we learn that Hydra has been put on to the city by Skye’s dad, that there is something in the Obelisk that certain people can release.  In the midst of that, Fitz managed to do his job, giving Skye what she needed.  Coulson and Fitz are able to save Triplett while Skye’s dad has run off.

In 1980s Austria, we see Whitehall run gruesome experiments that end with him gaining the young woman’s agelessness because he “took all the parts that he could.”  Which leads to the modern era with Ward talking to Whitehall about working for him, as a news report reveals that Senator Ward and his parents are dead in a fire, seemingly by the Senator’s hand.

We learn that the cyanide didn’t work and Morse and Hunter argue and then eventually get to what we all knew was coming: making out in the back of the SUV on the plane.

SHIELD Skye's MomAs the satellites are searching the Earth, they make a match, right as Skye asks what happened and Coulson is about to tell her about her dad.  Dad is then shown with Whitehall talking before the final flashback shows Skye’s Dad discovering the body of the young woman who had been tortured and killed for Whitehall’s agelessness.

It is very clear that he has revenge in store for Whitehall for killing Skye’s mom!

 

8 out of 8 nerds

 

 

So this is an 8 out of 8 episode of Shield!

 Some things I am thinking:

  • The three way weave is going to make closing this season exciting.  You have SHIELD.  You have Hydra with Whitehall and you have Skye’s dad, who I am 99% sure is going to have an ally in Ward now.  You see signs of cracking in all those factions, especially SHIELD, highlighted by the Coulson freak out last episode.
  • I like the continuing arc of bringing Fitz around.  I love his character in season one and they are doing justice to the idea of his sacrifice and his healing this season.
  • So, it would appear that the city is on Earth. (Unless that is just a ruse.)  That could make for some interesting possibilities.
  • The “blue angels’ have some potential.  Could still be a myriad of things though the “end the world by changing it” feels very Kree to me.  I am not ruling out the Inhumans plot like to come but it could go a ton of ways and I like watching and looking for clues.  As a Marvel Zombie, that is fun but I also think it doesn’t distract the show for normal viewers who didn’t memorize the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe as a kid.
  • As for Skye’s Dad: I see hints that they are mining his story in a way that lends me to think that he could be the High Evolutionary.  Obviously, that is scaled down and not over the top in the comic book way but that backstory is starting to have echoes.  I will say that his portrayal is one of the best parts of the show.  That dramatic add-on of “in the afterlife” creeped me out big time.
  • It was a nice way to get some Peggy Carter love in there.  All along I was worried that they would be too heavy handed with the crossing over but so far, they have found a good healthy way to tell a story and use her in flashbacks.  If that will change when her shows starts running on the regular, we shall see.
  • I love Joss Whedon.  When he likes you as an actor, you are going to have work.  Nice job casting Dichen Lachman as Skye’s mom.  I have loved her in previous things, most notably the criminally underrated Dollhouse.  (Which is reason #2 Whedonites hate Fox, after the firstborn of our hatred, the cancelling of Firefly.)
  • Lastly, interrogation rooms need a redesign.  The steel table invites self harm and/or police brutality.  They should make them out of a nice balsa wood. It can hold the mandatory one file.  (Never have I ever seen a cop put multiple files on an interrogation room table.)  And you couldn’t kill yourself with it and it would be cheap to replace.

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The Walking Dead Episode 506 Review: Consumed https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/11/walking-dead-episode-506-review-recap-consumed-daryl-crossbow-carol/ https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/11/walking-dead-episode-506-review-recap-consumed-daryl-crossbow-carol/#comments Mon, 17 Nov 2014 17:44:33 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=808

Nerds on Earth with a Walking Dead episode 506 review. Will Daryl finally find Beth?

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After last week’s Eugene centric episode of The Walking Dead, this week’s episode (s5e6) – Consumed – shifts to a couple of fan-favorite characters.

Obviously, spoilers ahead for this and previous episodes of The Walking Dead.

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Structurally, this episode focusing on Daryl and Carol may have had the least amount of dialogue since way back when Rick woke up from his coma.  It is interesting storytelling to be sure but it also made the episode feel like it was moving really slowly.  After the dialogue heavy episode last week focusing on Abraham and Team DC, it was definitely a dramatic shift in storytelling.  But it used some of the same patterns as well.  Like the flashbacks…

Which is how the episode opens with Carol being banished from the prison by Rick.  After driving away, there is a moment where Carol is weeping, which is the closest thing to remorse that we have seen from her since that point.  Carol had been portrayed as hardened, merciless, doing whatever it takes to survive in this world.  Yet, this shows us a different side.

She eventually gets her stuff together and holes up in a law office. (Fun fact: the writer of these recaps grew up in the small town where they film The Walking Dead and his first job was on the payroll of this law firm, though he worked in the courthouse across the street.)  She is surviving and eventually we see her driving with the prison on fire reflected in the windshield.

The story shifts back to the current time, as Carol and Daryl are trailing the car up I-85 into the heart of Atlanta.  As they keep their distance, they see a police officer get out, do some things and then drive away.  As they attempt to follow, they are out of gas.  But Carol knows a place where they can stay.  They break into what is a facility for temporary housing for people dealing with domestic abuse.  Carol has been here before and they hole up for the night.

Daryl and she talk about whether people can really get a new start in this world, becoming different.  Daryl talks about trying to and Carol wonders if the balance of the world has tipped to the point that they don’t get to help rescue others anymore, that they will only be able to defend themselves.  After Carol falls asleep, she wakes in the new day with Daryl burning the bodies from the facility (including, sadly, a child).

Our next flashback is a simple scene of Tyrese and Carol burying the girls after the “Look at the Flowers” scene from last season that still makes my blood run cold.

walking-dead-daryl-carolDaryl and Carol are in downtown Atlanta and manage to get to a skybridge, where we learn that the most effective attack against a zombie is simply….a zipper.  Because we have zombies trapped in sleeping bags and tents.  They work their way through and find a nice office where they hole up and stare at a battle scarred Atlanta through the window.  They talk about wanting to start over when Daryl sees a van with the same cross, which is stuck on a bridge.  They head out.

And straight into the injured and scarred Noah from just a couple episodes ago, who takes the rifle from Carol and robs Daryl of his crossbow.  As Noah is running away, Carol goes to shoot him in the leg, but Daryl stops her. Which makes her livid.

Our next flashback is Carol standing over the burning bodies in the prison.

Walking-Dead-Recap-daryl-carolThey manage to get to the van and are investigating when they get overrun with zombies, buckle up for safety and then ride the van to the bottom.  (More on my thoughts on this later.)

They then have a conversation about how things are changing.  Carol talks about her past, how she was in the abuse shelter but then went back to her husband and prayed for things to change.  In this world, she has learned that she can’t stand around and watch it happen, to watch everyone die.  The conversation is interrupted by noise, which leads to a zombie stuck with one of Daryl’s arrows and then machine gun fire.  Daryl and Carol then run into Noah, who they save for the moment.  A bookcase falls on Noah and Daryl takes a cigarette and then coldly leaves him to die at the hands of zombies that are about to break through.  Carol asks him to help; Daryl refuses.  When it appears he has left, a crossbow arrow kills the zombie.

noah-et-daryl-vont-chercher-du-renfortNoah then talks about how he has to run, from the hospital people, which leads to them discovering that Beth is there.  As they are moving through the city and towards the hospital, Carol gets run over by a station wagon.  Noah manages to keep Daryl away, saying that the hospital people will help her, heal her, and there is nothing that they can do, because the Team Grady Hospital has “guns and people” to which Daryl says “So do we.”

The episode ends with Daryl and Noah driving a large cargo truck back in the direction of the church.

6 out of 8 nerds

 

 

I give this week’s episode a solid 6 out of 8 Nerds.

Some notes:

  • In several instances, they are doing some great storytelling this year by giving us more backstory. I had long forgotten that Carol was a domestic abuse victim; she has come so far from being the helpless victim that she was portrayed to be in the first seasons.  But there is something in her that is broken through her experiences and she is working through them.  (Proof: She kept the book about dealing with abuse in your past.)  It is really fascinating to show how the world and the collapse around it can dramatically be the catalyst for change for people.
  • So zombies are strong enough to rip people apart but they can’t figure out how to rip a tent open?  I know I should just suspend my disbelief but as creepy as that scene was, I think they might be able to rip the tent walls open.
  • I am looking forward to the Mythbusters Walking Dead episode when they look at how that van would really fall.  A complete flip and land on the wheels?  That seems very convenient.
  • It looks like with just a couple episodes in this half season left, that we are headed for another battle, this one between Team Rick, hopefully with all the pieces reunited, and Team Grady.  Will former cop Rick want to rejoin civilized society of Team Grady?  Will they just try and take their people and move on?  What do you do when others are forced labor?  It could set up some interesting story between here and the end of the season.

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The Walking Dead Season 505 Review: Self Help https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/11/walking-dead-season-5-episode-5-review-self-help-eugene-confession/ https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/11/walking-dead-season-5-episode-5-review-self-help-eugene-confession/#comments Mon, 10 Nov 2014 17:25:51 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=740

A review of Walking Dead. The confession of Eugene Porter.

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After last week’s Beth centric episode, where we learn about what has been happening in Atlanta, this week’s episode of The Walking Dead – Self Help – is going to shift to Abraham and Team DC, as they are on their way to deliver Eugene to DC, where he says he can heal the world.

**Spoilers ahead.**

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As the team is cruising down the road in the church bus, there seems to be the normal kinds of small talk happening.  Abraham jokes about his relaxing grooming standards as he comes closer to Washington DC, and what he sees as retirement.  The conversation then shifts to a moment as Eugene confesses to thinking about the priest Gabriel and his actions before defending his haircut because his boss at the Human Genome project liked it.  In the midst of it, the bus suddenly is smoking and flips over.  (At this point, I’d like to remind everyone that you were warned.  That church bus was a death trap and had no chance of making it to DC.)

The story then cuts to flashbacks of Abraham’s past and backstory.  Over the course of the episode we get several of these.  In this particular one, we see Abraham using a canned good and beating someone to death.  As the shot fades back, we see several dead bodies, all presumably from his hands.

As he comes to following the crash, Abraham calls out for Eugene.  After a quick assessment of the situation, the team exits the bus, taking on the now surrounding zombie horde.  Tara gives Euegene a pep talk about now is the time to be brave.  In the midst of the fight out of the burning bus, Tara saves Eugene and he eventually returns the favor.  After the fight, the team has a discussion about what to do next as Abraham’s hands bleed.  As Maggie goes to rescue the first aid kit, the whole bus is engulfed in flames.  Abraham is a little bit scary in his desire to push forward, but settles down when Glenn talks him down and they settle on everyone being on the same team with the same mission.  As they move forward, Eugene sticks back, taking a moment to spit on the zombie he killed in defense of Tara.

In the second flashback scene, we see Abraham looking for his family after having killed the people in the canned good aisle.  Whe he finds Ellen, his wife, she is shaking uncontrollably.

Back in the present, the team enters some kind of bookstore and then after a quick assessment, start to mine the water from the toilets, rearrange the shelves for security purposes.  Abraham is getting his hands bandaged.

Later that night, with Abraham on watch, Glenn comes and they have a conversation about how he is as on board with the mission as Abraham is, and that he wouldn’t walk away, even after the bus fire.  Abraham talks about how killing has become easy, maybe too easy, as Glenn asks him to put away his knife.  As he leaves, we get a comic moment as he confesses his need for sleep and going to have sex with Rosita first.  Which Glenn says he didn’t need to know but he is cool with.

We then see Abraham and Rosita engaged in relations, as a very creepy Eugene watches from the Self-Help section.  Tara confronts him, and quickly moves the conversation in a different way, after Eugene confesses to watching.  She thanks him for saving her and trys to move him into recognizing that they are in this together.  And she talks about how he can learn how to have the edge needed in fights, just like she has had to learn it.  And out of the blue, Eugene confesses to sabotaging the van’s gas line with pieces of light bulbs back at the church.  His plan was that they would just be stopped, not for the accident.  Tara is shocked and digs to why he would do this.  He confesses to being certain that he thinks no one will welcome or protect him unless he can cure this zombie apocalypse.  Tara then tells him that he has it wrong, that the whole clan protects each other and that she will keep his secret.

Maggie and Glenn then have a sweet conversation about how this mission has helped them move past the base survival instinct into being a part of something larger and bigger.

In another Abraham flashback, we see him try and comfort his family, who are clearly a little bit terrified of him after seeing what he has done.

We then get Abraham and Rosita in a little bit of a heated argument about what to do next, as she is bandaging his wounds.  After the discussion of staying and sweeping for supplies, Abraham declares there is no need, as they have a ride with a 500 gallon tank of water: A fire truck.

tumblr_nesymvrGLh1rq5liro1_1280They get it cranked and it goes a couple feet.  Right then an ominous tire rolls by, coming from the door that the truck has been blocking.  After being schooled by Rosita on the mechanics of the truck, Abraham and all are then overwhelmed with a bunch of zombies from inside the fire department before Eugene turns the hose on them zombie horde.  (This is so weird, gross and gruesome, but it may be my favorite scene of this season so far.)  Abraham then laughs as the water clears the clutter revealing a warning graffiti and he starts preparing the fire truck to roll out.

The next flashback scene shows Abraham awaking, thinking he will find his wife beside him with their kids and instead sees a message that says he shouldn’t try to find them.  It really was heartbreaking to see this moment where what a man had become to save his family cost him their affection.

We then get to the firetruck which has stalled.  As it is being worked on, Eugene is reading a copy of HG Well’s The Shape of Things to Come, when Maggie sits for a chat.  She talks about how his hair is a cover, letting him be someone who stands out among the others in the lab.  She then talks about how he is nothing like Samson, dissecting a riddle Samson created that only he could know the answer to, because it was based on his own experiences of killing a lion and later finding its carcass filled with honeybees. A smell then hits the group.

Walking a little farther down the path, they come to a place where the horizon shows thousands of zombies in place, blocking the road and their path.  Glenn starts to walk away, talking of figuring out a different path, while Abraham talks about not giving up the ship to himself.  And then all hell breaks loose as Abraham says that they need to push forward, no matter what.  The discussion takes a weird turn when Abraham is dragging Eugene back towards the truck, with everyone coming to blows on the route.  It ends as Eugene loudly declares “I am not a scientist!

episode5jpg-ce703d01372d628aIn that moment, the whole crew looks defeated.  The one hope they all had and have been willing to invest themselves in turns out to be a fraud.  Eugene does say he knows things but is not a scientist and he thought the only way to get to DC, where he does think there is the best chance of survival was to trick people.  He knows the costs, listing off the names of people who died to try and get him to this point, in response to Tara questioning him about it.  Just as he starts to remind everyone how much smarter he is than they are, Abraham unleashes on him before Glenn can intervene.  Eugene is battered, unconcious, possibly dead as Abraham walks away before falling to his knees, his hands again bloodied.

In the last flashback, we see Abraham find the bodies of his wife and children.  And in that moment, he is choosing to end his own life when Eugene arrives.  After saving Eugene, he is walking away when Eugene declares that he needs help because he is on an important mission.
Some thoughts:

  • There is an ending that was missed.  The best ending of the this episode isn’t in Abraham just pummeling Eugene but in taking out his knife and shaving him bald.  The writers seem to have set that up.  Eugene’s conversation on it.  Maggie doubling back to that conversation. Glenn and Abraham’s conversation where he is specifically putting the knife away.  All of those would seem to be setting the table for that ending scene.  And it would have felt more cathartic.
  • This episode is all about meaning and purpose.  Clearly, Abraham’s flashbacks show a man who has meaning in defending his wife and family, then losing them and his purpose, only to then be given the mission with Eugene.  He is maniacally obsessed with it.  But even more so, you see it with Glenn and Maggie, who leave after the Terminus takedown because they need and want their lives to have a purpose past the steady survival that Rick seems to offer.  All of which raises an interesting point: What do you do once you know you can survive in a world without meaning?  I think the story also highlighted it in some ways with how quickly and easily the team dispatched of several zombie hordes pretty easily.  I never had the sense they were in danger; just taking the pieces as they come.
  • Eugene. A good while ago, I got the point where the story in the show had advanced past where I had read. From reading around, it seems like most people knew this was coming but it would have been an interesting twist to make Eugene really a beacon of hope.  Instead, he is a fraud and coward who manipulated people into keeping him alive and getting him to where he needed to go.  What happens with him from here will be interesting.  The group has offered asylum and forgiveness before, but this is a much different case.

 

6 and a half out of 8 nerds

 

 

 

A solid 6.5 out of 8 nerds.

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The Walking Dead Season 504 Review: Slabtown https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/11/walking-dead-review-season-5-episode-4-s5e4-slabtown-beth/ https://nerdsonearth.com/2014/11/walking-dead-review-season-5-episode-4-s5e4-slabtown-beth/#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2014 16:29:04 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=687

Slabtown: The Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 4 Review. What happened to Beth?

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So based on the previews from the end of last week’s episode of The Walking Dead, we all go in knowing that we are finally going to learn what has happened to Beth since Darryl lost her during last season.  And we know that they are headed for a reunion at some point because Darryl and Carol charged after the black car with the white cross.

***Spoilers abound.***

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So when the episode begins, we get a Lost-like close-up on Beth’s eye.  (And let me stop here for a minute.  There is a growing group of people that want to make the argument that all of this is happening in Rick’s head while he is in a coma or whatever.  And if that happens, my nerd rage will know no boundaries.  And the little head nod to Lost this week makes me very potentially angry.  Note to self: Do a Lost Team versus Walking Dead Team character versus character breakdown.)

As Beth awakens, she discovers that she is in a locked hospital room, with a clock.  In a rage of time induced paranoia, she rips out the IV to defend herself, only to meet two of the central characters of this week’s episode, Doctor Steven Edwards and Police woman Dawn Lerner.  They explain that she is at Grady Hospital in Atlanta.  She asks about Darryl but is told she was brought in by herself.  After a talk about how they have helped heal her, she is ominously told “So you owe us.

So Beth is put to work as a nurse, and on her very first case, she is present when they quickly pull the plug on a patient who shows no signs of improvement, which gets his warm body a plummeting fall into the hospital’s elevator shaft, where we learn that the bottom level is overrun with walkers, who come running because of the sound and the warm body.

Beth then shows up in the cafeteria, where she learns nothing is free and the newly introduced police officer Gorman says some weirdo things.  (People who write the Walking Dead seem certain that a greater percentage of creepers and weirdos are going to survive versus the rest of humanity.  That or they think the world is way, way more messed up then I do.)  I think we know for sure Gorman is bad because two major factors: 1) He is immaculately groomed.  2) He talks about hospitality.

To make sure that we all understand, he ends it with “Everyone costs something, right?” and he doesn’t mean good things.

Beth is then shown having a conversation with the Doctor, where he talks about how he saved an important painting from Atlanta’s High Museum of Art; it along with the record player are a couple of perks he gets for being Team Grady’s medical help.  He talks about how bored he is, which Beth rightly points out that if the post-apocalyptic world leaves you bored, you ain’t doing too bad.

Beth makes sure that she understands the economics of the system that the more she takes (care, food, etc.) the more she will owe over time.  But the doctor convinces her to try the guinea pig dinner he is having, which she seems, I guess amused is the right word.  (This is one of those details that I love about the Walking Dead.  The writers spend the time to make a plausible backstory.  In Grady Hospital, you can’t have cattle.  But you could farm guinea pigs, to go along with the rooftop garden they show as well.  They show and tell a plausible, “This is how these people are surviving” scenario.)walking-dead-slabtown-emily-kinney-beth-atlanta-600x300

In enters another rescued person, who suffered from a massive fall.  The Doctor says that he can’t save this one and that they shouldn’t waste resources.  Instead, Dawn pushes him to heal him.  A quick needle to the lung and the requisite amount of blood, and the Doctor then points out that that why he may be okay right now, he has nowhere near the necessary gear needed to diagnosis and heal his injuries and they should just end him.  At which point, Dawn says “Consider the stakes” and slaps…BETH?!?!

Beth is later shown asking the Doctor if she is always like that.  He says only on the bad days, but that are the only kind she has.  The next scene leads to the introduction of Joan, who I think we are all initially lead to believe had been bitten, only in the course of the scene, we discover that Team Grady knows her already and that this wound is likely self inflicted.  They try and reason with her before making Beth hold her down as they saw off half of her arm.

Which leads Beth to meet Noah, who calls himself the lollipop guild.  (Beth earlier had found a lollipop in her clean shirt the Doctor had given her to put on.)  Noah is a bit of exposition dump in this scene and we quickly learn that 1) He has never seen anyone work off their debt and leave.  2) He and his dad were found at the same time but that he was the only one saved; and he is smart enough to realize it is because he was not a threat to the power structure, where his strong dad might have been and 3) that he is from Richmond, where they were surviving and had walls.  Beth and he bond over the idea that the power structure of Team Grady has no idea who they are and how strong they are.  They plot to break out together.

Dawn then comes to meet with Beth, bringing food.  Beth quickly establishes that she understands the system but that she wants to earn her keep and be on her way as quickly as possible.  Dawn’s whole belief system is that she will do whatever is necessary to sustain what little bit of structure they have because eventually rescue will come and everything will be put back together in the way it should be. Of course, Beth has been on the outside and she knows the world has crumbled.  And as nice and as pressed as your police suits are, they don’t change that civilization, even inside Team Grady is falling and has fallen apart.slabtown_the_walking_dead

The next scene shows Beth taking a break from mopping up blood to talk to Joan, who basically says she was trying to end it because Gorman (and others?) had assaulted her and that Dawn looked the other way.  As Joan says “It is easy to make a deal with the devil when you aren’t the one paying the price.

So, after learning that people are being assaulted in Team Grady while the leader looks the other way, Beth does what we all do: she wants to stress eat.  Only her lollipop isn’t where she has been storing it.  And for course, Gorman has it.  And after a weird, creepy scene with Gorman, the Doctor shows up to defend Beth.  After some back and forth, where Gorman reveals his plan is that one day, he will be in charge, he departs, leading Beth to ask the Doctor why he stays.

Then he becomes an exposition dump revealing 1) First floor is overrun with walkers. 2) Dawn and Team Grady came together during the apocalypse.  They were order to evacuate the hospital to a park.  They were slow, didn’t make it but they did hear the jets and see the bombs dropped on the park  (This makes me think that the arrival in Washington DC might not be the best thing eventually.)  3) A guy Hansen used to be in charge, he cracked and Dawn took over to handle things, and she gives Gorman and others some leeway if they help keep her sense of structure.

The Doctor then gives Beth her last order for the night, which as she does causes the “I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up” patient to seize and die.

Dawn shows up furious.   Noah shows up and says it is his bad.  Noah is drug outside and beaten as Beth explains what happened and the Doctor says she used the wrong medicine.

Dawn and Beth then have another conversation, in which Beth is basically told that she is not worth much in the grand scheme of things.  As she defends herself, Dawn points out her wrist wounds from when Beth tried to take her own life.  Beth seems unnerved.

Beth is then with Noah and the two of them concoct a plan of escape.  While Noah distracts Dawn, Beth gets in her office, gets the key to the elevator, which we learn for some reason is carefully color coded.  But as Beth is in the office, she finds Joan, who used her one good hand to remove an eyeball and die.  But Beth powers through and gets the key, when Gorman shows up and basically is in the midst of sexually assaulting Beth when Zombie Joan gets him.  He is quickly neck eaten and Beth heads out.  When Dawn asks her a question, Beth points her towards Joan in her office.

Beth and Noah then make a break for it, using a prison laundry style rope down the shaft.  Naoh proves to be less agile and falls on the pile of dead bodies, hurting his leg.  Beth then guides them out of the hospital. And man, she proves she knows her stuff, as she is curbstomping and headshoting zombies all over.  Noah, who seems to suddenly completely unprepared for the walkers, is following her.  The scene ends with Beth shooting Noah a path to freedom before she is overrun by Team Grady.  But the smile on her face as she sees Noah run away seems to make us think she thinks it is worth it.

And so Dawn and Beth have another discussion, where Beth tries to break Dawn on her idea of what the world is like, about how no one is coming for rescue.  It ends with Dawn smacking Beth again.  (Prediction: at some point Dawn is going to go smack Beth, and either Beth or someone like Carol is punching this lady’s lights out!)

Beth reveals to the Doctor that she is on to him, that he had her give “I’ve Fallen” the wrong medicine because the Doctor knew that he was also a doctor.  And the Doctor admits to as much, saying that he did it to protect his spot on Team Grady and that he needed to do it.  This seems to motivate Beth to take up a needle later and end him but he is saved at the last minute as the new patient being rolled in is Carol!

Next week’s previews show us that our focus will shift again to Team Abraham and the march on Washington.

5 out of 8 nerds

 

 

 

So this episode…a 5 out of 8.  There are some things it did well and some things that I didn’t much care for.  One of the dangers of this kind of intense focus on one storyline for an hour is that when it doesn’t work, you don’t have a quick scene change, new characters to focus on to reset.  That hurts this episode.

Some thoughts:

  • Team Grady is an interesting construct.  One of the things that the show is doing over the long haul is introducing what the different survival tactics of humanity wind up being.  Rick and crew fall into a “whatever it takes to survive as a family” mindset  The Governor and Woodbury were a “we can protect each other if we band together and focus externally” type of mindset.  Terminus was a “Well, if the world is all going to hell, let’s at least see what barbequed people taste like” mindset.  In Team Grady, you see a group that is outwardly focused (rescuing others, trying to maintain a world order) but also focused on maintaining power.  It is a subtle difference from the Governor but a significant one.  I wonder what other ideas are out there as you’d try and create a new world order out of the apocalypse.
  • They did introduce some new, interesting characters.  I like Noah but I doubt his ability to survive.  He is not the war tested sort that Rick and company have become. The Doctor is an interesting character. And though Beth was ready to end him, a story of redemption for him would be great. And I have no idea what to do with Dawn. One of the follies of Lost was the introduction of the other people on the other side of the island.  If they aren’t careful, you’ll wind up with too many stories pulling in too many directions.
  • I like Beth.  Like a lot of the characters, she has gone from frail and scared to strong and confident.  I have no doubts had she made it out the way Noah did, that she could have kept him and her alive.  She has become a fighter, even bearing the scars (literally) of when she wanted to give up.

I am curious what happens next week with Team Abraham.  That is a hodgepodge, interesting mix of characters and there is no telling how that could play out storyline wise.

The post The Walking Dead Season 504 Review: Slabtown appeared first on Nerds on Earth.

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