I'm kind of torn about this episode. I've always appreciated Arrow for not shying away from the darkness of what Oliver does, and in general for making the point that violence takes its toll even when it's committed with the best of intentions (I wish some other superhero shows could learn this lesson - looking at…

I think it's kind of unfair to say that Ward kills Harold because Harold drained his bank account. He does it because he made a last-ditch effort to get away from a man who has clearly been abusing him for decades, only to have it thrown in his face that he is never going to be able to do that so long as Harold is…

Wait, does this mean Code Black was renewed? That was the one choice on my cancellation ballot that I was absolutely certain of.

I've been thinking for a while that unless the CW announces that next season is Arrow's last, I'm probably going to drop the show. This season has been an improvement, but paradoxically that's only highlighted the fact that the show is running in circles. There's an obvious trajectory to Oliver's story, which is…

Could be. But it's lousy kung-fu fighting, especially in comparison to Colleen's cage matches.

I'm really baffled by the fact that so many of the pre-air reviewers identified this episode as the one where the season starts to pick up. Like Caroline, I thought episodes 3 and 4 were a step in the right direction (though I wasn't as impressed with episode 5). This, however, was a major step back. It's cheesy in…

I think it's also that when people hear "crossover event" they think "I need to watch all installments so I can keep up with the story". But when they hear "musical crossover event" they think "ah, this is going to be outside of continuity so I don't have to watch it to follow the rest of the season".

Danny buying Colleen's building is creepy, but the lunch scene had already set the creepy entitlement bar quite high. He shows up at her place of work, while she's working, to take her out to lunch. When she points out that they made no plans and that she has a prior engagement, he says "I ordered takeout", as if…

This is such an obviously terrible idea that it had never even occurred to me that Netflix would consider it. Of course, I'm now convinced Netflix are going to do it.

That's like, my go-to example of a show that should have done a musical episode well and instead ended up just OK. I mean, "Guy Love" is cute, but otherwise I couldn't even name any of the songs, much less hum them.

I don't know if I hate them, but I'm struggling to think of one, post-"Once More With Feeling", that was any good. I'm not talking about shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend that are musicals from beginning to end (and Rachel Bloom is writing at least one of the songs for the DC crossover, so that's encouraging), but shows…

Humans is far from perfect, but it actually cares about the question of what makes the robots people, and how their presence changes the world. Westworld gestured at all these questions but really cared a lot more about its mysteries and plot twists. It ended up having very little to say.

Unfortunately, another thing Finn Jones was right about is that the female characters on this show are functioning mainly in support of the men. Claire doesn't get much to do except play cheerleader, and while there are a lot of great Colleen scenes, there isn't really an episode that focuses on her the way Luke Cage…

Oh yeah. Turns out Finn Jones was completely on the money when he said people wouldn't like the show because of Trump. It's just that, even before Trump's election, this was a very good reason not to make the show this way.

So, Iron Fist: yeah, this is pretty bad. My only quibble with the wall-to-wall bad reviews is that most of the same people gave pretty good grades to Daredevil S2, and Iron Fist is in no way worse than that. It is, however, a great deal more boring - lacking, for example, a magnetic figure along the lines of…

Well, the problem is that there's only so far you can take this idea before you eventually end up having to admit that vigilantism is counter-productive and that a person with Oliver's resources could do a lot more good as a civilian. Season 5 actually gestures in the right direction when it makes Oliver the mayor,…

Which, for the record, is the reason I like Arrow a lot better than any of the other variations on this story. As you say, its handling of this theme is deeply imperfect, but I appreciate any attempt to grapple with the costs of violence, and the possibility that there might be a better way of doing things.

Arrow's first season is pretty derivative of Batman Begins, and in general the Nolan films inform that show's plotting a great deal. So I guess it all comes around.

Oh, I'm totally fine with the idea that the Jennings are chasing their tails - to be honest, that's probably more realistic than the idea that they jump-started the Russian stealth program or whatnot. I was just pointing out that "US farmers sold substandard grain to the USSR" is in no way a relevant response to "did…

Oh, Philip and Elizabeth are bad people in every aspect of their life. And the fact that they had their children as part of their cover and continue to see them as an extension of their mission is a big part of that. But that doesn't change the fact that what they're doing to Paige, in particular, is profound…