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Yeah, I thought it was a bit of a mess too.  I don't understand what's happening with the Joe storyline or the Chester/Allegra storyline.  I don't know why they're doing a separate Khione storyline.  I get that Joe deserves a proper sendoff (and I think that's what we're getting here?), but characters moving away is always a weird way to leave the show.  If the Flash is in danger, it'd be super easy to get Joe back (and he'd want to come back).  Not only does he have multiple speedsters in his family, but they have teleportation technology.

The Chester/Allegra stuff has been dragging out for multiple seasons.  Why are they acting like they're in middle school?  And maybe the Khione stuff will end up paying off, but I don't see how this helps pay off Caitlin's story at this point.

Do we think this Red Death story was written before Batwoman was cancelled?  I kept thinking that it probably works if this story was going on with Batwoman still on the air.  Maybe Batwoman was missing for an episode or two, and then she shows back up at the end of episode 5 and then makes it to Central City on time?  There's also almost no wrapup of her story so I feel like it was written before and not adjusted?

It would be like getting Jerry O'Connell back for season 5 of Sliders for one episode and they have him play some sort of conman version of Quinn who doesn't even help Diana split Mallory.  And at the end of his episode he says "good luck with that or whatever" and it's played off for laughs.

We got Javicia back for two full episodes plus a cameo, and they didn't resolve anything.  No cameos from her team.  No update on what's going on.  And you're right, why even make her missing if they weren't going to address why she was missing.

It was cool to see her back, but it felt really empty.  Maybe it's better that the Legends aren't coming back.  Our head canon may be better.

I was one of the people taking issue with an older Batman, but my concern was mostly around the fact that I think Bruce and Clark should be contemporaries.  I didn't like that Affleck and Cavill were in such different places in their superhero careers.  It worked for the story they were trying to tell in BvS (kinda, they didn't go deep enough if they were going to go in that direction), but it didn't work for a larger story.

To me, Keaton looks older but I don't think he looks anywhere near 71.  He looks late 50s to me?  Maybe mid-50s.  The guy has aged great.

Question - my friend's wife has Covid.  My friend (who has had Covid twice so far) and two children have tested positive.  I'm supposed to have dinner with my friend on Wednesday.  If he tests negative by Wednesday, do we think I'm okay to have dinner?  I'm torn about it but want to keep myself and my family safe.  But also want to go if the risk is low / nonexistent.  What do we think?

I wonder how that stuff happens.  I know they changed networks, but this stuff is easily trackable.  You could just have the unit go rogue.  It's still part of the government, but now it can be evil.

I wrote a long rambling thing about Feige, but I ended up arguing against my own point.  I think my main point was that he's oversaturated the MCU market so it doesn't feel so much like an event.  It doesn't feel special as much anymore.  I was going to say that the D+ shows needed to serve the greater MCU more, but I think that they have.  I think where oversaturation has hurt the MCU, other than a loss of "specialness" is a decrease in CGI quality because Marvel is making a dozen projects a year instead of two.

But I prefaced my whole thing with talking about how much I like Feige and how much I respect what he's done.  So let's just leave it at that.  The argument I was going to make was either going to be forced or cliche - I think Feige is doing a great job.

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I watched Black Panther.  I thought it was really well done for what they had to do.  I won't get into spoilers, but while I thought it felt long (because it's very long), I thought it handled T'Challa's death with the weight it deserved.  It made me realize (again) what a big hole was left when Chadwick died.

Happy to speak more to it when more people have seen it.

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I'm going to try and see Quantumania before it hits Disney Plus, something I failed to do the last two movies.

The movie looks crazy expensive - essentially a Justice League sequel with seemingly as many action sequences (at least compared to Joss Whedon's version).  I assume that's why, no matter what Ezra Miller did, it was coming out. 

The movie does look interesting.  And as Gunn has said, it should reset the Snyderverse into the DCU.  I don't know if I totally understand how that can be the case - and how some people might be recast and some might not.  But as much as Ezra Miller makes me want this movie to fail, I'm very intrigued by it and am looking forward to seeing it.

Well, that's a good thing.  Perlmutter, besides being an ass, also is bad at content.  I think Feige has made some missteps recently, but there's no doubt he's better in every way from a fan perspective.

Yeah, and let's be honest - it's a minor miracle that Flash is getting any episodes at all.  It could've easily been cancelled along with Legends and Batwoman with all the nonsense happening at WB.  And even if that wasn't happening, with a Flash movie (allegedly) happening this year, they could've gone for a clean break and just said the Arrowverse is done.

And while it's not what I would've done, I appreciate that the Flash is working to make sure that we do get some level of closure with the rest of the Arrowverse.  It's their show, and they could've done whatever they wanted.  So even making the effort is a gift to the fans.  Just like with Michael Rosenbaum, any scene in the Smallville finale was appreciated and made me truly happy.  That we're going to get Oliver and Batwoman and the Legends back is really cool.

Have any other guests been announced?  Supergirl?  Superman?  Our boy Ray Palmer?

I don't usually do this, but this made me laugh.

I read yesterday that the show had a huge plan for a season 10 with the Justice League uniting to fight Destro.  When they found out they weren't getting a tenth season (and that the ninth would be shortened), these plans were dropped.

I don't understand these TV writers.  If there's a storyline that would be super cool and give the fans what they want...why do they insist on leaving those ideas unmade?  He says they need all thirteen episodes to wrap up Barry Allen's story.  But I feel like so much time is wasted on The Flash that they're going to continue that even with a leaner ninth season.  A Justice League story, even if it's just a 2-3 parter, would be a great way to end the Arrowverse.  And to just say "yeah, we wanted this but it won't happen" just irks me.

Maybe this season will surprise me and I'll say "you had 13 hours of television and you used each of those hours perfectly" - but every time this season that Barry fights someone dumb by running around in a circle, I'm going to be sad that we aren't seeing the Justice League unite.  Every time it looks like Barry and Iris are going to break up or whatever, I'm going to be sad that we aren't seeing the Justice League unite.

I know it's their show and they should get to end it how they want.  And they think they need all 13 to end their show.  And, really, they've earned that.

But I'd rather end the Arrowverse right than end The Flash right.  But that's just me.

I'm looking forward tonight to seeing what they do.

Yeah, they've already released an image of Amell in the Green Arrow costume.  It will be nice for him to be able to close out the universe he helped start.

Okay, I think that's essentially what I'd do.

Interesting.  I'm very intrigued by Gunn's vision.  And I'm glad that Superman & Lois will get time to tell their own ending.

Yeah looks like the Berlantiverse is done.  Quite the era but it's probably done either way.

For Batwoman, I would want her to come back and wrap up her character.  Same with the Legends.

For Oliver, I think he needs to stay dead or be the Spectre.  It would be weird for Arrow to wrap up emotionally on their show and for Arrow to undo some of that.  I don't know, I feel like wrapping up Legends and Batwoman is one thing - rewriting the ending to Arrow is another.  But it's all the same people, really, so maybe it doesn't matter.

It only exists in my head - I never wrote it

I've just always thought it was funny because it was clearly filmed outside of Dallas because there aren't mountains for hundreds of miles in the real Dallas

I did finish Stargirl - it was good.  I thought the twists at the end were a little predictable but effective.  I thought the show finished strong and left everyone in a good place.  The epilogue felt a little tacked on, but I don't know if it was or if it was supposed to set up a season four.  I know Brec Bassinger said season 4 was going to be "crazy" - I always hope writers are specific about that, but I don't know if they'll let us know what they were going to do.

All in all, the show was sweet.  It was different than the rest of the Arrowverse and I'm glad it didn't cross over with anything other than John Wesley Shipp.

I did read that Stargirl might appear on Titans.  That would be kinda cool.  I'm enjoying Titans season four, and I'm glad Doom Patrol is back.  I assume both will be in their final seasons.

I think this is a fair statement.

Were all of LOST's answers satisfying?  No.  Were all of them reasonable?  No.  Were some of them, after watching the show multiple times, confusing and/or dumb?  Absolutely.

But mysteries are hard.  You have to come up with a mystery that is interesting enough to keep an audience interested that is a) mysterious enough that the audience won't figure it out and b) simple enough that it's satisfying upon rewatch and c) with enough breadcrumbs that your audience won't quit because you aren't revealing anything.

LOST set up some simple mysteries.  What is up with this island?  What is this monster that keeps killing people?  Who are these "Others" on the Island?

The show couldn't really explain the first one since it was the primary question.  So it solved the question about the Others.  In season one, we knew one Other who died before he could reveal anything (Ethan).  In season two, we met another, but he kept his identity secret.  By the time he revealed who he was, his answers very vague and, well, mysterious.  But by season three, we were spending time with the Others.  By season 5, we basically knew everything we needed to know about them.

The writers knew this was difficult.  That's why they insisted the show end after six seasons - they didn't have enough ways to delay gratification.  You can answer the Others question but you have to open up other mysteries.

As far as what the Island ended up being...to me, it didn't matter.  The answer is still vague to me.  The Island has some sort of cosmic importance, but it's unknown what the Island being destroyed would mean for anyone.  It ends up becoming a McGuffin.  But by that point, the characters were so beloved (to me and others) that it didn't really matter to us.  The Island could've been a cosmic turtle or purgatory or the town from the Village and I wouldn't care.  It didn't magically make those answers more satisfying - it made the mysteries less important to me.

So that's why I understand why people get mad at LOST for the mystery aspect.  But that means that they never bought into the character aspect.  Which, again, is fine, but that means they essentially wasted half of every episode getting to know characters they didn't have any interest in getting to know.

The Leftovers is *incredible*.  While LOST is my favorite show, the Leftovers has to be on my list of the *best* shows.  I think it's incredibly well done and one of the most emotionally-gripping shows I've ever seen.

Now you're right - season one is hit or miss.  I think mostly because the show is so depressing.  I've suffered at times with depression and it was hitting way too close to home at times.  But I think there was enough in season one to get me through - I think Two Boats and a Helicopter is amazing and the end of the episode nearly destroyed me (I think Matt Jamison is a spiritual successor to John Locke). 

Season two is where the show is reborn.  They add a bunch of characters, change the setting, change the theme song (appropriately to a song called "Let the Mystery Be") and moved the story along.  Season three does some really great things, changing the setting again and experimenting with some different story ideas.

And the finale is perfect.  They set something up that works both as an emotional closure and a narrative closure depending on how you interpret it.  And, really, it's all because of LOST that it works.  Lindelof clearly learned from both legitimate mistakes and the artificial mistakes that fans blamed on him.

I think it's just phenomenal.  If I were you, I'd start it over again.  If you get the urge to quit, skip to season two.

I'm curious which nine they wrote and if I could tell you anything about the plot of the nine based on Smallville's somewhat-vague way of titling episodes.

I understand Welling's decision, but I'm confused by it.  Welling hasn't done a ton since Smallville, and he seems totally okay with that.  I'm sure he made more than enough money from Smallville to support his family and only work when he wants to, and the notoriety to make big paychecks whenever he does choose to work.  Not The Rock big but big for any of us (I think he just signed on to the Supernatural prequel and even though it's on the CW, I'm sure we'd all take whatever he's getting paid).

So was he worried about being typecast?  Was he worried he'd be a laughingstock if he looked silly? 

Because Gough and Millar also said "no flights" - that rule didn't last very long (Clark "flies" in the first season!) and was broken tons of times.  Why was Welling okay breaking "no flights" but not "no tights?"  Even if Superman is the end of the show, they could've included it as an epilogue so we could've seen the full Superman on the show after we all waited ten years.

But I respect it.  We got the chest plate and it works.  Whether we see the whole suit or not, we can visualize it. 

I would say that I wish that we'd gotten it, but Tom Welling and Smallville already made two wishes come true - we got to see Welling and Rosenbaum one last time (maybe the most excited I've been about a TV announcement, at least top 10) and we got Welling to return in Crisis (maybe the most excited I've been about a TV announcement, at least top 10).

So if the guy who made both of those things happen (I assume) wanted things differently than me, that's fine.  We owe him one.

I did it!  Here are some thoughts:

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I liked being back in the world.  Dexter is a really great character - he's funny, he's charming, and he scary.  I had a lot of fun watching him doing his thing for another ten episodes.  There were some genuinely funny moments, and it was a nice story.  It felt like a rebootquel with only minor cameos from anyone else.  But I think that also made the show pretty great.  You (ireactions) could watch this without needing to watch much of the previous stuff.

Was it as good as the first few seasons of the show?  Probably not.  Was it better than the last few?  I think so.  Again, the reason why I was the subject of this experiment is that I actually thought the ending was pretty appropriate and not terrible.  So I never thought the show was unwatchable.  It definitely got dumber, but it was also a victim of the era when it came out.  One of the season's big twists was solved because of the early days of fans coming together online to throw out theories.  And so the whole season rolled by with this twist that most fans already figured out.  Is that the show's fault?  Maybe?  It wasn't a great twist either way.

So what do we have in "New Blood"?  It's a simple little story.  Dexter's son returns and Dexter runs across another serial killer in town with him.  It's all a little convenient, but it works.  Dexter and Harrison are good together, Clancy Brown is a great villain, and the other characters are good.  There's a minor cameo from the original show which was nice, but it tries to be its own thing.  No opening credits, no theme song (except at the very end and over the closing credits each episode).

So does the show have a great ending?  Maybe?  I feel like I need to add another spoiler warning, but I guess I won't.

Dexter dies.  Pretty definitive end.  I don't think Harrison is a good enough character for there to be another season of New Blood, and I don't know if I'd watch it otherwise.  Dexter is a better character than Dexter is a good show.  And without Dexter, I wouldn't watch.

I don't know if Harrison is going to be less f*cked up without Dexter, even if it feels like it at the end of the show.  I think I would've actually preferred a happy ending where Dexter and Harrison do go and work as a vigilante team.  I might've liked to see Batista and Angela chase them down.  But maybe Michael C Hall didn't want that, and I think Dexter dying felt like the ending that most people wanted.

The thing is, Dexter dying is a cop out to me.  Dexter is a monster, but he's also the victim of a monster.  Dexter does enjoy killing, but he does have a code that he abides by.  On some level, Dexter wants to be a good person.  So I think if you consider the Dark Passenger to be an actual character, then Dexter is a victim of it/him/her.  So killing Dexter is killing the Dark Passenger and saving Dexter.  So is Dexter let off the hook now?  Or should he have to live with what he's done?

To me, the perfect ending is to have Dexter captured and face trial.  And I would've always ended the show with a season where Dexter is sorta playing Hannibal Lecter.  Doing one last redeeming action before he dies.

The issues I had:

- Dexter shouldn't have killed Logan.  I'm sure Dexter has killed innocent people before (Doakes is the most obvious example) in the name of self-preservation, but it felt lazy.  If they wanted Harrison to kill Dexter I think there could've been a much less contrived situation.

- The Dark Passenger being Deb instead of Harry wasn't explored nearly enough.  Was he/she/it the same, or something different?  It seemed like she was just a representation of Deb and seemed to be anti-Harry and anti-Code.  So not just a different embodiment of the Dark Passenger.  What was up with that?  I also felt like, for many times during the show, that there was something darker to how Deb was advising him.  But nothing came of it at all.  I might've liked to have a scene with both Dark Passengers.

All in all, I'm glad I watched it.  And I hope people enjoy the ending better than the previous one.  I probably prefer the ending where Dexter is suffering alone after spending years learning to love being around people.  But I can accept that Dexter was a terrible person who deserved to die and died on his own terms.

I saw Black Adam.  After hearing bad things from most of my Twitter nerds, I think it actually was pretty fun.  I think the universe still doesn't feel all that connected, but I think it was a fun movie.

Is Black Adam an anti-hero or just a villain traditionally?

You joke (kinda) but I wonder if this premise works in some manner.  I don't think it would work as a literal reboot of Sliders, but I think you could add a parallel Earth angle and this totally works as a show.

Imagine Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt, and Arturo are all unstuck.  Not only that, but the hamburger joint itself is unstuck.  At random times (that Quinn and Arturo can time on a timer), the restaurant itself and the sliders are transported to a different parallel Earth.  Because of whatever science-y nonsense, the restaurant and the Sliders exist on every Earth they travel to, and there are always a Quinn/Wade/Rembrandt/Arturo on every Earth.

So you have a sitcom situation where every episode, the Sliders are working on a hamburger joint on a different Earth.  People know the sliders and there would be doubles of "regulars" that come into the restaurant who would all be wearing alternate versions of their wardrobes.  Jokes would be tailored to whatever Earth they're on.

Most episodes would take place entirely inside the restaurant, but there would be opportunity to have scenes set outside - the sliders would always know when they would need to be back inside the restaurant for the slide.

I got my bivalent booster yesterday and MAN, it knocked me on my butt.  I felt worse than I did with the second original shot or the regular booster.  Chills, fever, fluish symptoms.

But still VERY MUCH worth it and VERY grateful to have received it.

I guess I need to look up what Tembi Locke has been up to.  If she can write an entire book and not mention her career much, she must have been doing some interesting things.

(That may come off as sarcastic but I legitimately don't know and am truly interested)

It's now FIVE months after this, and I would like my pal ireactions to know that I'm 4/10 of the way through Dexter New Blood.  And I should hopefully be done in the next couple of weeks.

My revised philosophy is that everything is canon but some things are more canon than others (TV over comics for example).  So I would think it's canon until something on the show directly overrides it.

But if the show comes back for a season 4, I'd love to see the episode on screen.

Any word on Season 4?

They need to get John Oliver back - his star has exploded since the show started, and I think he could be great in a smaller role.

I think Donald Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown need to be in it.  I understand that Glover is busy (so busy that he sometimes doesn't even appear on Atlanta, his own show).  But work around his schedule, pay him whatever he needs to be paid, and film something.  The show is meta enough that they can make it work with whatever amount of time Glover can spare.  Shoehorn him in - make him the post-credits sequence, whatever.  He made it to the table read and he seemed to have a great time so I think he'd make something work.

Same with Yvette Nicole Brown.  I don't know if there's another reason she didn't sign on, but she needs to appear to.  I'm almost of a mind that Chevy Chase needs to return (just so it's complete), but I know that will never happen.