Previously On DCTV: Week Three – Solid Nights.

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 review isn't available due to circumstances beyond my control. Truth is, I couldn't see it due to some network ish. The post will either be updated or Titans will be getting its own link.




SUPERGIRL(S04E02)

Where were we with Supergirl? How solid the premiere was, right? Another Sunday, another Supergirl episode. The sophomore is still as strong if not better.



The nation has been thrown into chaos. Typical America.
Citizens rally in front of the White House following the last week's reveal that the president is an alien.

From Culture right here, I'd say "kick her out" cos I don't know articles and constitution but a non-citizen shouldn't rule a nation. But that's not me picking a side. The nation would have been in much larger chaos if it didn't have an alien president who strived to create a balance to all species. And that's the root of the confusion which splits the America in the show, Supergirl.

But enough of national talks, where did Supergirl get the juice? Isn't this a better delivery? I mean, last episode was awarded for its incredible pacing and punchi-ness. This one, episode two, packs a heavy punch but drops a lots of ground-changing talks first.

Some "hold a mirror up to yourself" talk was so good I had to do it. So now that the mirror is up, how'd I feel watching this?


Well, the president resigned. Very good and damn straight for the sake of the show's advancement.

Few seasons ago, we would still contemplate the President's resignation for a few more episodes.

The people are angry: their hatred level for aliens spiked.

Mercy Graves, the baddie we didn't address fully last week has a mission.

Lena Luthor is selling(well actually all she did was manufacture it) an image inducer. It's a device that is used to make an alien with noticeable alien physical characteristics look more human so they can blend with everyone. Which is what Brainy has been using.

But now that the people don't like Aliens that very much, Mercy, in collaboration with the masked one, logged into the mainframe of the image inducers, not without killing the guy in charge, and proceeded to deactivating them which means every alien who uses it will be transformed back to their alien form. She only got so far in affecting the first user of the image inducer.


Brainy was buying a dozen pizzas when it happened.

The seller immediately turned on him and ordered his co-workers to vet out some violence.

That's when I realized we don't even know if Brainy(Coffee & Pizza name= Barney) can do combat.
I got no chance in finding out as Nia, the new Catco reporter steals the moment.

She heroically held a mirror to the pizza guy's face and he backed off. We later got to learn she's a transgender woman and that is why she's passionate about "justice" and "equality."

She convinces James to write an editorial to salvage the mayhem and (spoiler alert:::::: close your eyes:::::: she's gon' be suiting up soon).


Underneath these, Kara is trapped in Lena's office. She went visiting with Belly Burgers to get files on Mercy when Mercy attacked Luthor Corp with some big guns.

She tried all she could to get out of Lena's sight so she could, you know, tear off her buttons and suit up as Supergirl. But there was no opening. That in the picture, we saw some slick heroics like fake-sneezing to conjure up Super-breath.

Even when Mercy got her and Lena cornered in a gadget room, it was Lena who did the protecting.


And when she finally got the opening, Supergirl showed up and arrested Mercy but there's a glitch. Lena is a smart Luthor(at least that's what they'll have us believe. Readers of this blog know we don't follow that school of thought on this page). She probably instilled a lockdown at L-Corp that when activated, even Supergirl can't get in.

L-Corp is under attack by Mercy and on lockdown which means Lena wasn't expecting Supergirl to come save the day. But when she miraculously showed, Lena doesn't argue further but no one would in that scenario.

What I want is for Lena to take this week to think it out and figure out Kara is Supergirl because enough is enough. Lena has been the fool for too long.

But that's least of our problems, right? Mercy and her brother Otis escaped the mighty DEO by manipulating an operative who goes by Jensen. Maybe we'll see more of him next week.

However, a lot is happening outside the DEO, Catco and L-Corp.

J'onn is searching for his friend, the one that got stabbed in the back last week, and his search leads him to some kinda summit... with a lot of humans receiving 'aliens are evil' lecture from our masked friend. He goes by the name Agent Of Liberty. So humans be pretty basic: a masked man is motivating you to hate on the aliens in your neighbourhood and you're not even slightly bothered if the face behind the mask is one you should hate? Does it even matter? Cos that was a darn successful summit. The turn up and cheers and applause was huge.

However, the Otis Siblings have an equipment that can release kryptonite to the atmosphere and while Supergirl was strolling up in the sky, she got hit with a massive amount of kryptonite and crash landed. We didn't see her hit the ground but yeah. I can question that physics but we should wait till next week to see how smart our baddies are.



Another lit one. I'm tad bit surprise, you know. To think I publicly gave up reviewing Supergirl last season on! this page. So, no unnecessary banters and what are those things we didn't like about the previous seasons? I mean it's hard to think of them now when these season's offering have been consistently satisfying, progressive, entertaining and just good. But let's not jinx it, aye? See you next week.




ARROW (S07E02)

"My name is Oliver Queen.
After 6 years of being a vigilante,
the only way to achieve my goal
and save my city was to confess
to being the Green Arrow.
Now my family and friends must
carry on my mission without me.
I am no longer a hero.
I am 'inmate 4587.'"


I'm sorry, wtf? Inmate 4587?

I guess that means we should all get comfortable with Oliver behind bars because he's gon' be in there for a long time.

Last week, they made us worry about a new Green Arrow in town, Diaz losing his touch(oh that dude is way out of villainy. More on that later), and a future William in a flashback... sorry, flashforward.


This episode, new GA doesn't show up at all. But The Longbow Hunters did. Their names have been teased a lot before the season premiered and I felt, based on their names, they would have bows and shoot arrows and hunt people and that kind of thing. But these people are so 2018.


Their weapons include: High-tech shield, nano-powered
darts, Sonic manipulator and Silencer Effect (but I guess the last two are the same thing). And they stole a High-density
Renewable Battery.

That's all so techy for a group called The Longbow Hunters. And they are just so slick. Three Members shown so far. These guys infiltrated an ARGUS facility and stole the High Density Renewable Battery in and out with just little bloodshed. Not as if they needed it.

What does it do?

"One super battery has enough
juice to power a town. We were reusing them
to help refugees."

But bad guys can use it to level a town like they always do in sci-fi shows. But these guys were hired by Ricardo Diaz.

ARGUS just wants the device but Felicity is hell bent on taking down Ricardo and she's prepared to go to any length.


Well, in prison, after the stunt Oliver pulled last week, he's feared by everyone. Not just him, his new dorky friend/fanboy. Everyone reportedly fears him too because he's friends with the Green Arrow.

But Oliver isn't content and shares his wife's feeling: he wants Ricardo too.

And through Intel from his prison buddy, he gets to know the guys who attacked him in the shower were hired by Brick who did it for Diaz.

He questions Brick and the bald villain won't provide Oliver some Diaz info unless Oliver helps them get rid of the lead prison guard, Yorke.

Oliver tries to blackmail Yorke but the guy's clean. Brick and friends provide him with a weapon to get rid of Yorke permanently.

But here's what Oliver did: he confronts Yorke in the middle of the cafeteria and provokes him by bringing up his family. Yorke proceeds to remove his bat with the obvious intention of beating Inmate4587 but Oliver holds Yorke's hand that's trying to remove the bat from its sheath and returned his own hand together with Yorke's and the weapon Brick gave him and he stabbed himself making it appear as if Yorke stabbed him. The guards drag Yorke away while he screams "I didn't stab him." Mission accomplished.

That's very covert but pray you don't end up like this

Uncared for. No one is even trying to save his life.



On the outside, ARGUS, with Felicity behind the computer screen, track down Diaz and his Longbow friends to a moving train. And we saw 2/3 of the Hunters deal with ARGUS and there's this unrelatable showdown between Diaz and John Diggle on the train. So uncharacteristic and just... I won't call it uninteresting, it was. It was just so un-arrow like.

Diaz fights like a hench man now and he's using a some flaring device. And he lost the device they stole to John and John escaped unhurt.

Let's talk about some interesting fight. The new District Attorney, Earth-2 Laurel, still wants Diaz dead(lol, is there anyone who doesn't.) She's been ditching her SCPD protective detail and tracking Diaz. Dinah joins her unwillingly and the interesting happens.

The third Longbow Hunter, a black woman that uses the earlier mentioned Silencer Effect and the Sonic sth is just badass. Not the good kind of badass; the bad one.

She's beating the sh*t out of Laurel in one room and Dinah who's simply tiptoeing beside them but can't see them because they are separated by a wall couldn't hear a thing. That device is cool.

And the sonic scream doesn't even reach her. Laurel screamed but there was some kind of shield protecting this yet unnamed woman. Dinah tried too. But it took their combined sonic powers to tear off that shield and she took off. That's what I call interesting.

Now to some dreary flashback, I mean, flashforward sequence, William and Roy try to figure some things I'm not even interested in.

Remember that Hozen Oliver gave Thea? Felicity gave it to William and grown-up William found a beeping thing inside that has the coordinates to Lian Yu. Which is why he's there. During their conversations, it was revealed that Oliver and Felicity somewhat abandoned William(ha ha ha) but he's not totally abandoned. Dude is stinking rich.

Roy and William dig up a grave and found Oliver's bow and arrows. It has a message written on paper. We didn't get to see the message but I guess it says "Teach him." Roy and William head back to Star City.


This season's flashforward... I don't know how to feel about it. The season on its own is not having any problems at the moment. Oh, and Felicity has gone to the FBI agent that arrested Oliver for help in taking down Diaz.

Diaz seems to be failing recently. The Longbow Hunters are formidable, thank you. Star City is simply boring and where's the new GA? Who is he? Should we care? What does future William have to do with any of this? Is this show better off with Oliver not being with 'Felicity and Friends'? Is prison good for Oliver and the show? I need the answers to these questions but if answering them will ruin this smooth ride, don't.







LOT S04E01


The Legends return for the fourth year and they may have decided to stay in that naughty, funny, magical realm that worked so well for them last season. But doesn't it seem a bit too much. I mean, a bloody unicorn that emits sparkly shiny stuffs?

This episode is messy everywhere and if you are just seeing Legends for the first time, you'd think it's in the comedy genre.

They open with The Beatles. The time team are part of The Beatles' protective detail. An effort to stop an anachronism.

They've been doing that for the past five months which fits exactly with the period they were off air and matches Arrow as they now share the same timeline. But that's not even up for consideration.

The Legends are bored. They are bored to the extent Mick and Nate went robbing. They are tired of petty anachronisms and need actual monsters after Constantine brought them the severed head of a dragon last season.

"Werewolves will be good for the ratings"

I feel that every mention of "ratings" in this episode alludes the show's actual ratings.

Sara, the ever positive captain, is "evolving" with Ava Sharpe. And with shows like this, happy times heralds evil. Two seconds after Sara agrees to move on with Ava, John Constantine shows up.

He kills it with his magical landing.

Constantine warns Sara of evil because, apparently, when they opened the veil to let Mallus into the present, a whole other things followed.

But how harmful is a Unicorn? It's a beautiful beast. But isn't much attractive after it eats the heart of two hippies and bit of Gary's nipple.

PIC

The house Mick Rory of the Central City Rorys and Nate broke into belongs to Nate's parents. They were caught and turns out Pretty has visited parents since he joined the Legends two years ago. We can expect an episode worth of story off that one.

We got to know Nora Darhk escaped from the Time Bureau and Ray, who might be in love with her, helped her do that.


John Constantine warns Sara to end things with Ava but she won't listen to the sadist's whining.

What happened here? A unicorn will kill a bunch of hippies in 1969 and the team, well the team did nothing other than get their mind messed up by a horse with magical powers. It was John Constantine who did all the work. He helped the team send the horse to hell and he's, of course, gon' help Gary with his virgin problem. What a guy!

You know one of the things I miss about writing these pieces is reviewing LOT. Last season was really good and LOT proved itself better than its predecessors. This premiere, however, I can't seem to place my mind on its goal. It's extremely funny:


*After Gary loses nipple to Unicorn moments before it was banished to hell*
John: Come on, it's a badge of honor. You see, my soul is
heading straight to hell,
 but your nipple... it just
got there first, that's all.
 It's flashy. It's shiny. It's almost gross. The unicorn had wolf teeth and it eats a good amount of hearts. Is this a premiere thing or the season thing? Cos it's gon' take a while for me to be cool with all that.

Either way, that was solid. LOT took this shot cos it isn't scared anymore. It's a force to be reckoned with in the DCTV and The CW is aware of that.

An unseen evil tortures John at the end and writes on the mirror using what should be blood, that it is coming for "Johnny" Constantine. That means more magic. How well did that work for fellow DCTV show, Arrow? You can ask Gideon.




The Flash (S05E03)


When it opened with a future scene of the infamous 'Flash Museum,' which is unimpressive, I tot this was gonna be a dud. I mean, It's just Star Labs with a lot of gadgets and costume arranged around it. Like a rich celebrity's vault.

But then Cicada happened. Not even his presence– his history.

Supergirl, The Legends, The League of Assassins and even Green Arrow, all the heroes from around the Arrowverse tried to defeat him but they lost. Future Nora made this known and even shocks us further by saying The Flash never caught his. So he's a mystery in the future as well as now.

But the episode doesn't follow the footsteps of the previous two. It doesn't bring in a side show or villain to complete 42 Minutes. It brought us Herr Wells and subsequently, "Harisson Sherloque Wells at your service."


I've lost count of the number of Wells that have appeared over the past five years but Sherloque is not one to be overlooked, just like every other one. He's the multiverse's Sherlock Holmes. A detective they've brought in to help them find Cicada.

Cicada is scary! And that's me talking. Sherloque Wells fails at first to bring in Cicada because he's captured 37 Cicadas on 37 Earths and they all have the name David Hersch. So he assumes this Earth's Cicada would be Hersh and he led them to a wrong guy.

Caitlyn and Ralph are still hunting for Caty's dad and when she makes some progress, she finds out that her dad left a message telling her to "come find" him. Meaning he isn't dead. And that's after they let us know some person has cameras around Star Labs watching Caty.

But while all this is happening, Cicada has invaded the Wests' apartment. I told y'all after the premiere that Cicada's deal is to kill metas. So dude ties Detective Joe West to a chair to question him about Cisco/Vibe's location. He obviously wants to kill Vibe cos he's a meta.

And moments before unimaginable things were about to befall Cecile and their new born child, Vibe shows up via distress call.

He spears Vibe into the breach and they found themselves in a forest that Vibe can't breach himself out of. Cicada successfully manhandles Cisco cos Team Flash is no good with combat. With Sherloque's help, The Flash is able to get to them but he gets beaten too. It looked like all those high school movies where a very big bully sets his eyes on some nerdy teens and hands their asses to them. Mehn, it was pitiful like the last one.

But Nora thought of something quickly.

So she provides a manual breach from a trick Sherloque pulled earlier and made it look like Vibe was incinerated. You've to watch it to feel it. I admit I can't do it justice. And once Cicada was convinced Vibe was dead, he didn't bother about anything else cos that dude can fly.

See, the dagger is like Mjolnir, Thor's hammer. It finds its way back to Cicada and can only be lifted by only Cicada and it allows him fly.

Cicada is no meta from what we've seen. He has a family. He has battle scars. A lot of them. And has a regular man's job but he's still scary. In and out of the costume.

News Flash next morning, VIBE IS DEAD.

They publicised his death on the media to further convince Cicada who's probably doing all this cos a meta put his daughter in the hospital.

I really need Team Flash to leave Star Labs. That building is beyond compromised. I'm just saying.

The Flash's fifth season's big bad is worth it. The Thinker knows all but that was cheating. Cicada is formidable. His victory sheet is more than any. Green Arrow could handle the Reverse Flash.

In 2018, superhero flicks are as good as the Villain. Cicada is good. Not yet relatable but scary, skilled and mysterious is the recipe.

The first 'solid' for The Flash this season because it focuses on the main villain and the main heroes. What Caty's dad have to do with all this is somehow coming into the picture. But here's to more solids.





BL (S02E03)

BL wraps this week off on a dreary note. This is how great shows die– stagnancy.

The story doesn't move forward as it seems BL exhausted its material last season.

Jeff meets new principal. Lynn is making no progress with the pod kids. Anissa is stealing to help the poor. Jennifer is still grounded cos she can't control her powers.

Nothing noteworthy happens in its third episode except some Tobias/Painkiller drama.

Painkiller accidentally kills someone in an attempt to wake him up in his operations with Tobias. Tobias gets arrested by Freeland PD.

What's happening with BL? New characters are being introduced but none has an arc that's candid with the plot. There's no attempt to take the regular characters to new places literally and figuratively. BL is losing its touch with viewers because of these reasons and that's why its this week's worst episode. Let's hope there's some good next week.



Best Character of the week:

Best Episode of the week:

Best Villain of the week:

Best Hero Of the Week:

Moment of The Week:

Best Action:

On hold cos we need every episode before awarding. And besides, Titans have been taking the crown.


Supergirl airs on Sundays. Arrow airs on Mondays. The Flash and BL airs on Tuesdays all on The CW. Titans airs on Fridays in The DC Universe Streaming Service.