DC Recap Summer Session, Week 5

15 Aug

Welcome back! We got a pretty large Wonder Woman recap to get to, along with the usual suspects of Constantine and Swamp Thing, so let’s jump right in…

“The Feminum Mystique, Parts 1 and 2”

Diana gets a surprise visitor from Paradise Island: her little sister, Drusilla, who was sent by their mom to let Diana know she should go home now. Diana does go home, if only to make her case why she needs to stay in man’s world until the Nazi threat is handled, and Drusilla learns about the wonders of the world, like ice cream. But as you can suspect, we still got to deal with Nazis, and they are up to no good, even after early on in this two-parter when Diana foils their plot to steal an experimental Air Force plane. They start focusing on what metal Diana uses for her bracelets (especially since they can deflect bullets and all), and kidnap Drusilla because…she kinda looks like Wonder Woman, and maybe knows where this mystery metal is. And they find out, thanks to a rather cute Army officer she likes being a Nazi spy!

So the Nazis send a group to raid Paradise Island for that special metal, Feminum (I’m not kidding here), all while Diana is over there looking for Drusilla. Meanwhile, Drusilla escapes to help stop that Nazi spy from sabotaging another experimental plane, and then heads to Paradise Island to help Diana and the Themyscirans fight off those Nazis. The Nazis get defeated, get their memory wiped to forget where Paradise Island is, and everything seems to work out. Plus, we got some sisterly bonding over fighting bad guys!

“Mom? Sis, I’ve been gone for a while, does mom look different to you?”

–We got a genre favorite playing our Nazi captain: John Saxon, star of many B-movies, but known mostly for being the dad in A Nightmare on Elm St., and in Enter The Dragon.

–Speaking of recognizable actors, Debra Winger plays Drusilla (Wonder Girl), and this won’t be her last appearance in this show. Stay tuned.

–Queen Hippolyta is now played by Carolyn Jones, who played Morticia Adams in the classic The Addams Family TV show.

–I recognized most of where Paradise Island is filmed is the mansion compound at the end of Commando. Just one of those weird connections my mind made. I was just waiting for Schwarzenegger to run by with a machine gun is all.

–“If this Mr. Sinatra is knocking people dead, then something should be done about that right away.”

“Danse Vaudou”

John, Zed, and Chas take a trip to New Orleans, as another blood mark on their map of evil occurrences has gone live. What they discover are random occurrences of murder, with no distinct pattern at all, except they match up with similar deaths at those sites. With the help of a police detective, Corrigan, our heroes find these murders are caused by souls brought back from the dead. And those ghosts have been brought back by a familiar face: Papa Midnite!

John puts together that Midnite isn’t resurrecting these ghosts for nefarious purposes, but is accidentally releasing them through seances he’s providing for people who have loved ones in the afterlife. So Constantine and Midnite team up to send the ghosts back to the grave, and provide them closure to make sure they stop their murder sprees. This is all connected to that whole “rising darkness” Constantine has to fight, perverting Papa Midnite’s magic to make this happen, so Constantine asks Midnite to contact the spirit world to find out what he can about this “darkness”. Midnite only has bad news: Constantine will soon be betrayed by someone close to him!

The things magicians do to steal wi-fi when they don’t want to waste time stealing passwords…

–Jim Corrigan is a name familiar to DC comics fans, as he’s also known (after he dies, of course) as the supernatural force, The Spectre.

–Corrigan reveals he recognizes Zed from a missing persons report a year ago filed on her by her…family. His words, not mine.

–Chas is more a hotel chain kind of guy. He’s racking up the rewards points, as you can imagine.

–Midnite sent his sister to Hell, so Constantine and him have something in common, sending unfortunate women to Hades. Kinda messed up.

–“The only magic me old man did was making a pint disappear.”

“Drive All Night”

Maria Sunderland’s visions of her dead daughter over the last few episodes are not exactly all in her head as we learn, when it seems her spirit possesses little Susie. Abby starts learning about what is going on, and is forced to confront her own involvement in the death of Maria’s daughter. But what she starts to remember is that a dark force is what claimed Shawna’s life, not specifically Abby at all. That evil spirit tries to kill Maria and maybe even Abby as well, but thanks to Swamp Thing, the evil spirit is expelled back into the swamp.

In other stories, Swampy himself runs into a mystery man who seems to know who he is, and is helping Swampy learn about his connection to the swamp itself. Sheriff Cable investigates Alec’s “murder”, and goes into full on cover-up mode (murdering an informant and all) when she gets info that her son might have been involved in the crime! Meantime, Woodrue learns more about those Swampy samples Abby was examining and figures out that they come from a living being, so he gets Avery to sign off on sending mercenaries into the swamp to recover said creature! I hope Swampy is ready for all that trouble coming his way…

Swampy has a new fishing buddy! Good on him!

–We finally confirm Avery and Sheriff Cable have had a fling or two before and now after Avery married Maria. Also, Avery tries to threaten Liz over that story involving his corruption, which escalates into an attack on her at night. And that, well, leads into the next note…

–Ian Ziering here (Daniel Cassidy for those of you wanting to call him by his character name) apparently CAN’T leave Marais, lest he catch on fire! So he does help Liz fight off her attackers later, and gets knocked out with a crowbar over it.

–Who knew a Belinda Carlisle song could portend tragedy, especially “Heaven Is A Place On Earth”?

–“Are you someone I should be afraid of?”

NEXT TIME: Wonder Woman goes ape, Constantine performs an exorcism on a young boy, and Swamp Thing is being hunted by Avery Sunderland’s mercenaries!