DC Recap Round-Up 2, Week 4: How I Met Your Evil Fairy Godmother!

3 Nov

Welcome back! Once again we got a full deck of shows for recap, but at least there’s a break coming next week for at least two of these shows. For that, we got something special to make up for having half of our lineup to cover next time. But let’s get to right now, shall we?

“Man of Steel”

So we immediately follow what happened last episode as Mercy Graves has seeded kryptonite into Earth’s atmosphere, immediately poisoning Kara and only by luck, is saved from plummeting to a horrible death by J’onn. While Alex and the DEO are attempting to keep Kara alive, we take a trip down memory lane as we learn about who Creepy Metal Mask Man is. Well, he’s Ben Lockwood, a college teacher who is very sympathetic to aliens, while his dad is still stuck in the steel era, and oh yeah, he hates aliens. But after a recent freak encounter with an alien and his father’s stubbornness to not upgrade his business to handle alien metals is costing his family business money, things start to change for Ben.

Add to that a horrible string of bad luck connected to events that have happened throughout the series, Ben becomes more and more hateful of aliens on Earth, loses his job, loses his sanity, and loses his father until he becomes Citizen Liberty aka Creepy Metal Mask Man. Well, that and being recruited by Mercy Graves turns him into Creepy Metal Mask Man, but mostly all the bad luck. So after we learn about how Ben got turned into a xenophobic psycho, we learn Kara has little chance of surviving on Earth in her kryptonite poisoned state for long. Enter Lena with a protective supersuit to contain and heal Kara, which fixes the problem in the short term. Long term however, is another matter.

“I think we’re overreacting to season eight of Smallville a little bit, aren’t we?”

–This season has been a bit more prescient more by coincidence than anything else, seeing the time frame it takes to produce an episode. Recent real life news can’t help but really add to how unnerving Ben’s descent into anti-alien extremism really is. It may not be subtle, but considering how often irresponsibly blunt real life has been on the subject, how could it be?

–Ben wants to get that DEO turncoat to help him get inside the DEO headquarters, which I’m sure is not for good reasons.

–Veteran actor Xander Berkeley plays Ben’s dad, and boy has he had to be in some horrifying death scenes on television this month (see the recent season premiere of The Walking Dead for a way less dignified death scene than the one we got for him here).

–A brief Cat Grant appearance is always welcome.

–You know, you would think alien invasion or destruction would be covered in home insurance in this universe, but sadly, no.

–“So, besties?”

–“What color will be used to repaint the Blue Room?” “Blue.”

–“For the record? Beastie Boys.”

“News Flash”

Things get complicated enough when Barry and Iris let their grown up daughter make their loft her home too, but we learn something else about her this episode too. First though, we should mention our evil meta this week isn’t really a metahuman at all, rather ambitious and unscrupulous blogger Spencer Young, who has a tablet affected by the dark matter infused debris of that satellite that burned up and crashed all over Central City last season. Yeah, we’re into meta-infused technology now. On the other hand, we learn from Ralph and Sherloque Wells’ investigation into Cicada that this may explain how Cicada came to be, possibly affected by that debris in some way (like a glowing wound on his chest, for instance).

As for that evil blogger, she is creating scenarios with that infected laptop that build up Nora as a hero speedster while preventing incidents Spencer is creating. That boils over to Spencer making Nora attempt to kill Barry (not realizing Nora is being hypnotized into killing her dad), but with Iris interfering with that by tranquilizing Nora, Spencer is caught. The problem is this brings up a thing we learn earlier about why Nora is so prickly around Iris: because Iris in the future put a power dampener inside Nora that she didn’t know about into months before she started to travel back in time! Nora feels her mom robbed her of the choice to be like her dad, but when Barry plays sympathetic to what future Iris did (even though we don’t know why future Iris did that), Nora decides in anger she wants to move in with Joe and Cecile. Maybe future Iris wanted to prevent Iris from screwing with the timeline, which apparently didn’t work. Oh well.

Speedster family squabbles are the worst.

–Who did tell Nora about that power dampener in her, anyway? Because I have one guess who, and only one person could benefit from dropping that bombshell into the Allen household, if you get what I mean.

–Ralph’s idea to follow the mask Cicada wears is a good one, even though it doesn’t pan out the way he thinks. But Sherloque realizes Ralph is right in it being connected to that dark matter debris, and unfortunately for both of them, they went to the same chemical plant Cicada works in and missed him! Drat! Oh, and Cicada seems to be getting super strong as that wound is getting worse.

–Cisco sits out this episode at his parents’ house. You know, he has to still pretend to be dead and all.

–Nora messing up the timeline does not improve Iris’ making of pancakes. EVER.

–Barry getting the short shrift at the charity softball game between the police and the fire department almost makes up for Flashpoint. Almost.

–Joe’s…okay, right? (Well apparently the actor had a back injury during the show’s hiatus so that will mean quite a bit less of him for a while. Best of luck for a solid recovery.)

–“I’m going to make a banana!”

“The Book Of Consequences, Chapter Four: Translucent Freak”

With Tobias Whale in police custody, you would think things would improve for the Pierce family and Freeland, but no. Jefferson is butting heads with Prinicpal Lowry over the new principal’s zero tolerance policy in Garfield High, and then learns the case against Tobias for murdering Jefferson’s dad will fail, even if Jefferson admits in court he did see it happen as a child. Before Tobias is let loose, he does have a meeting with a crime boss about blowing up a clinic that got a rather large cash donation from a super hero that ripped said crime boss off. So yeah, Anissa’s little Robin Hood thing last time has lead here, and now she needs her dad’s help.

Jefferson teams up with Anissa and stops the clinic from being blown up, but it’s a small victory in a lot of bad turns for the family. Lynn is bothered by her new assistant’s lack of desire to save those pod kids from a horrible death, and more bothered, when her assistant discovers those secret DNA samples of Lynn’s kids. And Jennifer tries to deal with her issues and powers, but once she learns her parents want to keep her out of school for the time being, she ends up getting in touch with Khalil. Not a great day for the good guys.

A piece of poetry worth checking out when you have the time.

–Gamby has some things to do here, treating the fatally injured Kara. She gives him a lead on that mystery briefcase before she dies, so there’s that. And he gets to fight the bomber hired to blow up the clinic.

–On the ironic side of Gamby being helpful, that Gamby erased all the evidence that could have helped bring down Tobias for the murder of Jefferson’s father because he wanted to protect Jefferson’s abilities is a pretty cold twist of fate. It’s made worse when Tobias claims to the media that he hopes the real killers are found, and Jefferson sees it.

–I think we can now truly call it: Lowry is a jerk.

–Tobias did ask for some cameras to be put up at the clinic in case Black Lightning showed up, and I wonder what will come of that since he did show up.

–Of course Tobias would suggest veganism and yoga are the reasons he hasn’t aged.

–“And I also stay out of the sun.”

“Witch Hunt”

John Constantine decides to join our heroes on the Waverider (probably has nothing to do with that violent encounter with whatever attacked him last episode) just in time to help them on a magic mystery (or “mytheries” as Ray wants to call them) in 1692 Salem. It looks like Salem and it’s inhabitants get BBQ’d in the midst of a witch trial, and the Legends discover it’s because the child of a widow charged with witchcraft has made a new friend in…a fairy godmother? Well, this fairy godmother is attached to the daughter and if they banish the godmother to hell, the daughter goes too, unless the daughter gives up the really bitter fairy godmother, which seems unlikely. Add to that Zari deciding to deal with these backwards Salem residents a bit more forcefully, things just get worse.

The Legends (or more Zari in this case) convince the daughter to release the fairy godmother from her duties, and afterwards, Constantine tries to convince the godmother for some help for his “problem”. The godmother knows what is coming for Constantine, and takes the trip to Hell instead of facing that, whatever it is. Meantime, we discover Nate’s dad is one of the government reviewers sent in to review The Time Bureau, leading to Nate having to convince his dad about all the crazy time and magic stuff (SPOILERS: he succeeds). This success leads Nate to decide on staying around in current day Washington D.C. to work with the Bureau. Looks like we got an opening on the team!

Nope, nothing odd about Nate holding a naked Ray Palmer in his arms. Just another day at the Time Bureau.

–So don’t allow Gary to argue for your defense is what the message of this episode is. Or that Puritan men are slimebags who persecute women. Both, probably.

–Nate uses cooking oil for his hair. It seems to work.

–Beebo Blox. Not available at your App Store. At least, not yet, I think.

–Apparently the Legends don’t have paid vacations. Or get paid.

–“I better update the chore wheel.”

–“Who wears glass slippers? Imagine the blisters!”

–“What in the Disney hell is this?”

–“A unicorn ate my nipple!”

–“We’re getting our Puritan purit-ON!”

NEXT TIME: While The Flash and Black Lightning take a break for a week, Supergirl fights in a new suit, and the Legends of Tomorrow get into a mystical punk rock scene. Also, a review of the first few episodes of a new DC show (albeit streaming), Titans!