Previously On DCTV: Week One – DC's Titans shows The Flash and Black Lightning How to Begin the 2018/2019 Season.







This is a weekly review of all the DC Comics shows flexing on the small screen. The Arrowverse: Arrow, The Flash, Legends Of Tomorrow and Supergirl; CW's Black Lightning;
Fox's Gotham, Syfy's Krypton and brand new DC's Titans.


Titans, The Flash and Black Lightning premiered this week.




THE FLASH

The premiere picked up right where we left off: Team Flash defeating Devoe and getting Ralph Dibny back, Caitlyn losing Killer Frost and Joe and Cecile's baby been the newest member of the team and well, the lacklustre cliffhanger about a certain pink-wearing speedster who claims to be Nora – Barry and Iris' daughter from the future – who has made a "mistake."

As wildly guessed, the mistake is helping her Dad destroy the satellite that was gon' send humans to the stone age. And in doing so, rendered her speed-force connection sloppy.

Team Flash spent the first few minutes trying to figure out if Nora is actually related to 'BIris.' Nothing a few Caitlyn + Cisco tests can't do.

The premiere also utilizes a few seconds to address a major DCTV problem.
I mean, I would be here ranting about why they can't just let the Legends transport her back to the future since they have a time-ship and Nora can't access the speedforce.

But Wally, whose premiere appearance might be the last we see of him this season, brought back news from the time team that some blah-blah negative tachyons present in her body will blah-blah vaporize the ship if she gets close to it. So they have to do some old fashion running.


The Dibny-Situation

A very funny one. I mean if I'd heard that Harry is from "Earth-2" without reading subtitles, I would have thought he was from Earth "also."

To think Ralph didn't know about time travel this whole time is actually funny no matter how uninteresting this episode presents itself.

But it also serves as a means for the show to laugh at itself:

"If Eddie really wanted to erase Thawne from existence, why didn't he just have a vasectomy?" .... instead of killing himself?

I had to look up the dictionary for that one and I had a very good laugh off that.

A vasectomy is a medical operation to remove part of each of the tubes in a man's body that carry SPERM, after which he is not able to make a woman pregnant.

If Eddie can't get a child born, then no Thawne, no Reverse Flash. I actually think that would have been more effective than a shot to the heart.


Mummy West

Actress Candace Patton(Iris West) quickly becomes a mother as soon as she knew about Nora.

Chatting with Nora over latte palpably establishes a mother-daughter relationship even if the similarly talented actress across the table(Jessica Parker Kennedy) is four years older than her.

"I'll ask u questions about your life and if I'm right, you just blink twice."

Iris West has been a member of Team Flash long before 'Arrow' became 'Felicity and friends.' She not knowing that wrecking the timeline doesn't have anything to do with blinks or nods is selfish on the part of the writers. Knowing alone is enough to Eddie Thawne someone out of existence.

And yeah, you're not the only one thinking it, Nora's XS is the wackiest superhero name ever.

And speaking of wackiness, how the network news on CW's DC shows automatically un-mute themselves when there's a breaking news that affects our characters still troubles me. Is there something I don't know about Star City televisions?


That Newspaper

The only part of The Flash that has remained consistent from the first season: still mysterious and affecting.



The only reason Nora is back in 2018 is because her Dad, Barry, disappeared few years after she was born and she's never really met him.

So she lied about not being able to access the speedforce, knowingly put negative tachyons in her person and never actually made a mistake. Did she?

Even her speed-force connection wasn't tampered with, then we ended last season on a lie. No mistake. What a child!


But at least she brought a future present:
Fans of the comics and animations will recognize the ring costume. It's awesome to look at but should we really be putting on future fabric?


Caitlyn is still on the Killer First hunt. I refuse to delve into it again this season until it starts making some actual sense.


We got our big bad: Someone shows up at the end with a "Flash" dagger to kill the villain of the week. His name is Cicada for those not in the know, and his mission is to kill metahumans... in the comics his mission was to kill people saved by The Flash. Just know he kills and we are getting a season full of him.

Did the premiere kill you? Let me know in the comments. Welcome to Season Five.




BLACK LIGHTNING

Black Lightning is back. Season One started out strong but derailed towards the end, according to fans. But I felt it all through: the electricity, the brilliant acting, the very much beautiful cast, the unconventional plot despite swimming in a highly proliferated genre... so there was no question about returning for a second season.


But this premiere, unlike other second seasons' premiere of other DC shows refuses(doesn't even try) to top its pilot season's first episode.


If there was a time jump, it wasn't significant. They wanted us to just continue watching Black Lightning from where we stopped... the premiere echoed that our characters are still the same as last season. No development of any sort; just one new character slightly established (greenlight kid, Issa).

Freeland is still dealing with greenlight but on a very massive scale as the government and the media are now conveniently involved.

Turns out most of the kids affected by the drug are the 'black' teenagers of Freeland, so police gunning them down using the usual rhetoric is another way for the show to pay homage(one of many) to the black community.

Another is the cliché 'black' church that gets to me every time. The church is the only place the premiere uses to visualize the community's pain.

Also the only place to mock the christian faith, if you ask me. That woman's son woke up from the dead and her mother rejected him in the name of "Jesus"; a masked lady walk into the church while the pastor was giving a sermon reading Romans Chapter Three, and the pastor pulled out a gun. If this show wasn't being developed by a black man, I'd be saying something else.


Principal Jefferson Pierce a.k.a Black Lightning.

Jeff starts this season getting mouth-slapped by a white lady who happens to be a member of the school board.

Apparently, the board members do not believe his story that he was on a vacation when the school was attacked and are contemplating closing down the school.

Well, he has more to deal with. His friend, Deputy Chief Henderson has put two and two together and figured out that Jefferson is Black Lightning and Jeff refused to deny it anymore.

Jeff agrees to step down as principal and let the white ones do whatever they want with the school.




Dr. Lynn Stewart(A.k.a former Mrs. Pierce, mother and wife to the saviours of Freeland, owner of no-superpowers)

Dr. Lynn is being questioned by the (government???) on what she knows about the pods. She lies her way through, of course. But still uses Gambi(with his connections to the ASA) to get herself in a position where she's in charge of those pods and where she can take care of the children as she claims.


She also has a disoriented daughter (Jennifer) who's still refusing to use her powers and learning how to control it. The bottled-up lightning inside Jen manages to hurt Lynn and we still need to worry about what Jen really is and why hers is different.


Anissa(a.k.a.Thunder)

Anissa is still on her worst behaviour. She's the black version of The Flash's Caitlyn Snow– always whining about sh*ts. But she takes action.

The parents of the "greenlight babies" in those pods needs 500 Million to sue the government. So Anissa gave a beating to a bunch of criminals, in what can be called one of the best (and realest) fight scenes on the show. She steals their money and donates it to the parents.

She steals more, we were shown, and now we have to worry about a stealing Thunder.



Jennifer(a.k.a I don't want these powers)

Jen is still getting "harassed" by a non-present Khalil through phone calls. Dude, just wanna talk.

When she sleeps on bed at night, she floats. Why is her struggle different than others?


Soon she's unconsciously creating electric cocoons in the bathtub. Dad helped her out with that one by (absorbing the lightning?)

Is that not gon' affect him in a way. I'm waiting.




Others ( a.k.a the characters who got way less interesting)

Gambi is now just an old man who can use the computer and knows people.

Remember that Vice Principal? Kara? She's ASA's spotter(Gambi's old job) and now she needs a way out of the ASA and she wants Gambi to help?

Remember that briefcase? The one we were left on a cliffhanger with. They are still not telling us what it is.

Remember Syonide? Thobias' PA? She's dead. Yeah, she died in the premiere. Kara killed her. Yeah, Kara the Vice Principal killed her. Who knew the hot VP could do kungfu?

Remember Thobias? Yeah the albino who claimed he's the king of Freeland last season finale? He's still sitting in that chair. And one last person: there's a new boy.

One of the greenlight babies, who was killed (I can neither confirm or deny that the police killed him) but while his dead body was being transported, he woke up from the dead. He's cute. Hasn't said a sentence. But looks like we got a new meta to care about.


Not a weak premiere but a weak premise. There are no new topics or plotline to focus on...it's just a 14th episode that took 7 months to return. Happy lightning.





TITANS

DC's new streaming service delivers the premiere of its first show: Titans.

And boy, screw the 21st Century Writers who are hoping to Iron Fist this one out of existence, it was soooo good. Like good enough for someone who saw no promos, no trailers, no synopsis, nothing.

DC fan boys and girls know the Teen Titans. We know its a team made up of sidekicks of major heroes. Basically a mini Justice League.


I saw no trailers so I literally just bumped into it, not knowing what to expect, and I was impressed. So I'm not gon' recap this like every other tabloid writers who thinks everyone who saw it knew who this character is and what his powers are... ama recap what I saw and what was hinted. Shall we?



Titans kicks off with a dream sequence by a teenage girl about a circus events featuring 'The Flying Graysons.'

The name 'Grayson' is no strange to a DC fan.

Grayson= Dick Grayson
Dick Grayson = Robin
Robin = Batman's Sidekick

Why am I doing this?


So the circus stuff went wrong, two people fell down to their death while another looks on in despair. The girl wakes up and she reveals to us,

"The boy... he watched his parents fall."

Turns out she's been having the same dream for a long time.

Girl gets ready for school the next morning but we get to see her Mum reveal some sort of claw scratch on her body(possibly from her daughter).

So the pink hair hints "Raven."

We get to know some sort if Constantine-esque darkness is in her and the darkness can split itself from her for a few moments to do some bad things– as we saw after a strange man shows up out of nowhere to shoot her Mum in the head... right after the poor woman was forced to confess she isn't the girl's real mother. Girl runs to Detroit. Her name's Rachel.






Robin

We move to Detroit Police Department where we see Dick Grayson. He's a grown young man with some kind of underlying mystery behind his stiffness.

We learn he just transferred from Gotham and likes working alone because some stuff went wrong with his former partner. The new Lady assigned as his new partner gets cold responses. We were later hinted that the estranged partner is the legendary 'Batman.'


Dick follows some bad guys. And when he was sure they'd reached their destination, he suits up. These baddies are selling drug.

Robin shows up in what is the best entrance possible for a show of this tone... or not, because the entrance establishes the tone for the 50-minute-long flick. The costume looks like every Robin costume we've seen (and that's a good thing).

The bad guys disrespects him by asking where Batman was and he taught them some manners.


"F%ck Batman," he said.


The show is clearly R-Rated, thanks to this scene again. This Robin kills. Like literally kills people. The only reason he's here delivering the second best fight scene of the week(Anissa is gold), is because one of the criminals beats his son and he's here to warn him. He uses the man's face to clean up some broken glasses. Some warning.


Quick: Rachel arrives in Detroit. Her inner darkness saves her from kidnappers and she winds up in a police station. When she sets her eyes on Dick, she says, "It's you."
Yeah the boy from her dreams.

But Detective Dick Grayson is no boy. She gets kidnapped again and Dick was there in time to save her. Well, the inner demon did everything... bloodily.

One thing these scenes established was, "This isn't The CW. You gon' see a lot of blood."




She's Black

A black lady wakes up in a car that was apparently shot up and the driver is bloody dead. Russians shows up, she runs. Found the card to an hotel in her person and a passport with her face on it but she can't seem to remember who she is and isn't at all bothered or showing any sign of amnesia.

In her hotel room(she owns the whole top floor but is unaware or can't remember because of reasons that were never addressed all through the premiere), she founds a man gagged and locked in the wardrobe apparently by her...she can't remember.

After a brief fight, which revealed she has superpowers, she kills him. He drops an interesting name before he died tho.


Konstantine Kovac.


I can never get Stephen Amell's pronunciation off my head.

Konstantin Kovac is a name that's familiar to Arrow fans(Arrow returns next week).

He was played by Dolph Lundgren and he was a Russian mob boss. Having another character play it here crashes every hope of a crossover between this tonally different worlds. Thank you. Especially, after she kills him.

She completely incinerated him, with fire coming out of her hand. I think she's Starfire(Laugh with me, fams). Turns out the only reason she's feuding with Konstantine, who admitted to actually loving her, is because she's searching for a girl. The same girl with Dick. Rachel Roth.


Note that all of this is strange to this lady, whose name is Kory Anders, as she seem to have no memory of anything nor anyone she's crossed path with.




Big Budget

That's what having a tiger transform into a boy means. In the final scene, we see a tiger rob a film store but doesn't kill the security. The tiger transforms into a boy who's delighted he got the cassette. That's probably Beast Boy.


Four members of the potential team have been established in the way this new streaming service knows how to. But its not all that bad. The tone is free from superhero extravaganza and closely resembles a Netflix baby. The cast look to be interesting as the show goes on because the bits of their personalities pinched out for the premiere shows there's a lot more.

This looks to be a new type of DC. Something Krypton and Black Lightning are poorly striving to achieve. Welcome to DCTV, Titans.



Best Character of the week: Nil. Maybe Next Week

Best Episode of the week: Titans

Best Villain of the week: Kara(BL)

Best Hero Of the Week: Robin (Titans)

Moment of The Week: Robin Vs. Drug Dealers



The Flash and BL airs on Tuesday on The CW. Titans airs on Fridays in The DC Universe Streaming Service. Supergirl Season Four premieres on Sunday,October 14 while Arrow drops Monday, October 15.


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