DC Recap Round-Up 2, Week 8: Feasting on Leftovers!

4 Dec

Welcome back! We got this and another week of full programming before we get into the scheduling weirdness that is going to be the Elseworlds crossover and what isn’t covered by it. But that’s my problem and you’ll see my solution eventually, but until then, let’s just jump in…

“Rather The Fallen Angel”

James gets taken to see Agent Liberty, who wants Guardian to make a big statement for the Children of Liberty by destroying a symbol of all this human/alien togetherness. That symbol is the big alien naturalization center at an island (with its own version of the Statue of Liberty, in case the point isn’t clear yet), and when it’s clear James isn’t going to do that willingly, he’s given incentive when that friend he made in the Children is threatened. Things seem to get worst when Kara gets help in Manchester Black, who seems to betray her just so he can get up close and personal to kill Agent Liberty. When it’s clear the real Agent Liberty (hey, Ben has a TV show, so he has to prioritize) is not there at all, Manchester helps Kara escape and stop the bomb meant to destroy the island.

Manchester’s double dealing gets him in trouble with J’onn, but Manchester could be less concerned whether he upset our favorite martian or not. He’s so less concerned he straps a empathic enhancer on J’onn to escape, which leaves J’onn a little more emotional than he should be for the immediate future. Meanwhile, Lena is now testing that super serum on real people, starting on a guy who seems desperate to make a difference. Unfortunately for that guy, he dies from that experiment, so it’s time to pick another subject. Oh, and James tries to patch things up with Lena, but that looks like there’s a ways to go on that end.

Supergirl: our metaphors are always heavy handed.

–Manchester drives by the old Lockwood Steel plant rather menacingly. I wonder what that means.

–J’onn with a Western hat. Well, that’s something new.

–Lena was four when her real mom drowned in front of her. That’s rough, but even more surprising, she remember that at the age of four! Also, her middle name is “Kieran”.

–So it seems the twist I was expecting that Tom, James’ new buddy in the Children, was going to be setting up James to make him detonate the bomb? Well no, he really did change his mind and join the good guys.

–Director of this episode Chad Lowe is probably more familiar because he played Coville, one of the baddies of season three.

–“I guess this is what happens when we let fear guide us.” Evergreen quote if there ever was one.

“O Come, All Ye Thankful”

Lets start up with the origin of Cicada, or as we find out is a man named Orlin, whose comatose daughter is in fact his niece, Grace, left to his custody after his sister was killed in a metahuman incident. He doesn’t want the responsibility, and things are rocky between uncle and niece for a while, before Orlin warms up to her. And then that whole debris of a satellite full of dark matter happens, and it puts Grace into a coma, and leaves him with a piece of the dark matter infected core of that satellite stuck in his chest (which of course, is his main weapon now). And thanks to a doctor who’s a little fed up with metahuman incidents, Orlin decides to start killing all metahumans.

On the Team Flash end, their Thanksgiving plans get interrupted by some weird weather metahuman hijinks. They think it’s the Weather Wizard, but he’s still in prison, so we discover it’s his estranged daughter, who has a meta tech staff to create weather and massive daddy issues to iron out. They take care of the Weather Witch before she can kill the Weather Wizard and possibly destroy all of the city, and manage to have a relatively normal Thanksgiving. Oh, and now they know who Cicada really is. Kind of like an early Black Friday present.

“So, I’m looking for a guy who visits here. He looks like he was in the American Pie movies…”

–Nora was concerned about losing her dad for most of this episode after he got the lightning strike that stopped his heart. It seemed excessive, but hey, someone has to learn the risks of being a hero…this season.

–Joe, Camille, and their kid are off at relatives for the holidays, while Ralph is…at his relatives? Look, I’m sure that’s it.

–A nice turn to see Killer Frost be the one to knock Cisco and Sherloque out of their “Thanksgiving sucks” funk. Hey, she’s had a worse year by far, guys.

–Man, calling Cisco “young Ralph Macchio” was a sick burn, Sherloque.

–“And you want me to believe me she just woke this morning and was like, ‘You know what? I want to break my dad out of Iron Heights’?”

–“So, thanks for letting me drop a truck on my dad!”

“The Book of Blood, Chapter Three: The Sange”

Jefferson finally gets to meet Looker after being captured by The Sange and discovers, she’s kind of all alt-right, and is somehow drawn to the child now in Anissa’s protection. He manages to escape and grab the other kid the Sange’s holding onto, and gets back just in time to help Anissa fight Looker. Our bad girl gets taken out (probably not dead), and her hold on her slaves is released, while the Perdi are now able to rebuild their lives. Plus, Jefferson realizes Gambi is alive and tracks him down to let him know he’s still part of his family. All good, right?

Not exactly, because Khalil attempts to get clear of Tobias even after being tasked to scare off that reverend. Jennifer offers to help, and helps Khalil find some safety from Tobias’ men, and reveals she’s got superpowers. And she decides because of all the isolation she’s been put through this season to run off with Khalil from Freeland. Mom and dad didn’t hear about this, and as I can guess, are not gonna be happy at all.

Thunder wins! FATALITY!

–So Looker doesn’t seem to be dead based on the conversation of letting the AUSA retrieve her, but I don’t know, being impaled into a wall off your feet seems pretty dead to me.

–Gambi is spending his exile time designing a motorcycle. I assume we’ll see that before long.

–I admire the reverend’s stubbornness to stay in town to deal with Tobias, but let’s be honest, this is against Tobias. That man is apparently driving through town looking for Khalil like the 4th craziest Lyft driver on Earth in this episode.

–At least Jennifer’s shrink suggests safe sex for Jennifer. I know Jennifer made a deal about that last season before Khalil got crippled, but hey, best to remind her.

–Funny to believe Looker got foiled because she thought Jefferson got his power from his suit. And then electrocuting him as torture only gave him more power. Great plan.

–“Just stop. I will pay you to stop.”

“Tender Is The Nate”

So our heroes are off to deal with some mystical anomaly in 1927 Paris, but unfortunately, they are not alone. Nate’s dad, Henry, tags along to see if the expenditures for the Legends are necessary, so of course they are trying to be on their best behavior, even as Nate meets the familiar looking Charlie for the first time. That gets tested when we learn the creature they are hunting is a freaking minotaur, and Henry involves noted hunter and occasional writer Ernest Hemingway in hunting it down. As you can imagine, that doesn’t go so hot.

Nate, in his desire to prove himself to his dad, comes up to the solution to stopping the minotaur: playing on the minotaur’s daddy issues…and also playing a lute. But that plan eventually works, and it seems things are going to be fine for our heroes once again. Meantime, Ray ends up mailing himself in a letter to Nora’s cell, which is only awkward because that’s discovered after an accident causes a female bonding moment between Nora, Ava, and Mona. And now Ray and Nora are passing each other letters, which, awwww.

Look, it’s just a guy lulling a minotaur to rest by singing a James Taylor tune. Pretty sure Arrow has done this before.

–Clearly Nate is going to be around for the foreseeable future, but obviously not on the Waverider. Well, he still has to be disappointed in his dad once he finds out about this Project Hades Thing.

–Fun reference to Sting, who was the visual influence for Constantine in the comics.

–Gideon got a face lift! Or a facial upgrade! Whichever sounds less icky.

–Leave it to Charlie to be the only one to realize that Dali drawing was a minotaur. Maybe it was the melting clocks that gave it away.

–“Ooooh, mythology burn!”

–“That’s for being on my eighth grade reading list!”

–“Lets go to the parlour room, which is spelled with a ‘u’, because our last captain was British…”

–“I thought he blew up in space!”

–“‘That was absolute garbage. I’m American, soccer, yardsticks, ranch dressing, weasel’.”

NEXT TIME: Brainy and Nia are brought in to help on Supergirl, The Flash goes back in time to learn how to stop Cicada, Black Lightning searches for her daughter, and Legends of Tomorrow faces the deadly threat of dolls!