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And side question - is J'onn still using the Hank Henshaw identity?  He was referred to as "Director Jones" both at the manufacturer and the DEO.  When did this change?

At this point, I'd actually like to see some form of Bart.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/41741 … etos-joker

In addition to a potential Juaquin Phoenix Joker movie, they're also working on a Jared Leto movie.  I like that DC is willing to do anything and working on many different avenues....but it's odd that they won't let Batman in the Arrowverse or Smallville because that would confuse people....but they'll do two separate Joker movies?

Wally is once again homeless.

http://tvline.com/2018/06/05/legends-of … s-regular/

Yeah, I just think that if you're playing this iconic character in a modern time where reshoots are definitely going to happen, you have to be careful with what happens.  And the actor usually avoids the blame - Kate Mara wasn't blamed when her hair looked ridiculous during reshoots of Fantastic Four - but the production itself (and the director) were blamed for making it look horrible.

As I said, Whedon (ironically) was able to find a way to shoot around Chris Evans' beard during reshoots of Avengers.  It was just one shot that didn't require anything out of Evans besides him being there, but he was able to shoot it without anyone noticing (if, in fact, he was even there - as it's just a stationary shot inside a restaurant....I could've directed that).

And maybe no one is to blame.  I just find it odd that you get Cavill in this movie, partly because he's Superman.  Just like you saw years of trying to get Stallone and Schwarzenegger in movies together because it'd be Rambo/Rocky vs the Terminator.  They're obviously not playing Rambo or the Terminator, but people still use part of that fantasy as part of the hype.

Maybe Cavill's character is undercover.  Maybe the mustache plays some part.  Or maybe they did just want to make Cavill less pretty.  Either way, it just seems like an odd choice for Cavill to agree to....or an odd decision to force on him.  It was either petty on Paramount, naive of Cavill, or just a bizarre set of circumstances.

I think that's a great analysis.

To me, Tom Cavanaugh has a lot of similarities with Michael Rosenbaum.  They're actors who are incredibly goofy in real life, but I was introduced to them portraying characters with this very serious dark side.  It's clear that both Cavanaugh and Rosenbaum want to be goofy characters, perfectly suited for the types of podcasts that both man seem to really enjoy doing.

But to me, Rosenbaum played a cold, chilling Lex Luthor so well on Smallville.  Even if his decent into comically-evil Lex was awkwardly paced, I bought it because Rosenbaum sold it.  And I enjoy serious Wells more than I enjoy comic Wells.  The Council of Wells does nothing for me, and I didn't particularly care about HR.  I didn't like Wells when he was tripping over things, and people were rolling their eyes at him.  I like Harry as a person, and I don't like deviations from that character.

At the same time, I do agree that he doesn't really have a place anymore.  The roles that people have grown into have made him obsolete.  It's one reason why I liked the idea that DeVoe might be setting up a series of events where Harry becomes the true Thinker.  It would've been a tragic ending, but it would've given Cavanaugh something significant to do.

I don't know where you go from here.  Cavanaugh is a fun actor, and I'd love to get more of him.  But if they want to use him as comic relief, they should just let him go.  He could work on Legends.  I don't know if he'd fit any better on Team Arrow than he would Team Flash (who have Felicity and Curtis in his role), but I'd actually really love to see him bounce off Oliver for a season.  I can also see him staying on Flash if they wanted to shake things up on Team Flash (which, honestly, they haven't done much of on that show).

I honestly don't know what I'd do with him.  Maybe it is time for him to move on.

I mean I'd love to dismiss it, but now it's such a big part of the show.  What's crazy is that it didn't even have to go that route.  If they wanted an alternate universe where the apocalypse happened in season 5....I think it's a great idea.  It really ties into the mythology of the show, and I sorta like how they can bring back gritty versions of everyone.

But it seems like a simple move to make.  Lucifer won.  He wipes out humanity because he's evil.  Or if you want to do the Michael thing....no one won.  The world is destroyed because Lucifer and Michael have been fighting for 8 years and don't care about collateral damage.  Michael can be a little twisted because of how long he's been at war, but he shouldn't just be executing people for no reason.

Instead of bringing back Gabriel, bring back Cage Michael.  He'd be just as twisted, and they could rehabilitate him.  And when you have Dean say yes to Cage Michael, you'd get a cool Sam/Dean dynamic because Cage Michael has been trapped with Sam in the Cage before.  They have actual history together.

They just didn't think Apocalypse World through at all.

That actually makes a lot of sense.  There was originally going to be a Whedon tie-in to keep the movies and the show connected, but when Whedon didn't have time or energy for it, the connection weakened.  And when Whedon left, it was completely severed.

Thinking about the timeline also works in why the Film division might've seen value in AoS and then realized that they don't really bring much.  Agents of SHIELD premiered in September of 2013.  At that point, the only Phase Two movie that had come out was Iron Man 3.  Thor: The Dark World was coming.

At this point, the MCU wasn't really a success.  Phase One was a mixed bag, both creatively and financially.  Of the 19 current MCU films, Avengers is the only movie that's even in the Top 10 of Box Office numbers, and Phase One is 4 of the 6 lowest rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes.  The films were picking up steam, but they weren't the guaranteed blockbuster that they are now.  Iron Man 3 had just come out, and while it was a commercial success (5th highest grossing MCU film), it was rated by fans and critics around the same level as the other solo films (outside of the first Iron Man).

Marvel Films might've seen Agents of SHIELD as a way to drive people to their movies.  We saw direct tie-ins to both Winter Soldier and Thor: the Dark World.  We saw minor characters from those films appear on SHIELD.  They were able to show tons of promos and advertise to a core audience.

I think Winter Soldier could've changed their minds a bit.  It was a critical success, and it got a lot of people talking about how it was a legitimately good movie.  The next movie was a bit of a wild card in Guardians of the Galaxy, and it did well.  Suddenly, the MCU had some street cred, and they realize that they don't need the show to drive the audience.

The next season, they did the cool background storyline with the Helicarrier, but it was really just a nod to AoS fans (not much more).  But there was no tie-in to Ant-Man, and by that point, the MCU was rolling along well enough that Civil War could make as much as an Avengers movie.  There was no reason to use SHIELD's dwindling audience to drive people to movies that more-than-succeeded on their own.

And by that point, SHIELD was doing enough stuff on their own that it wouldn't have made sense to have Sif show up again.  I'm sure they would've loved if someone like Paul Rudd showed up, but it would've seemed forced.

I finally watched the Flash finale last night.

I really don't know what to think.  I think the Thinker was a really good idea for a villain because he can frustrate Team Flash in ways that no other villain had up until that point.  Barry thinks of himself as a genius, and so do Cisco and Harry and Caitlin and....everyone but Joe maybe?  And to have a villain come in and kick their butts at something they all think they do well was interesting.

What also was promising is a villain who has goals that are understandable.  Previous villains want "more speed" for....reasons.  I never really understood the goal, and the main fights ended up being races that didn't seem to make any sense.

Instead, I think they made two fatal mistakes.  One, they didn't think that a guy in a wheelchair vs. a team of superheroes was compelling enough so the second half of the season turned DeVoe into Sylar.  They made him way too powerful physically when his mind should have been his primary weapon.

Second....his plan was too convoluted and didn't make enough sense.  This was their best chance to have a villain with a clear motive, and they botched it.  As long as Arrow and Flash were copying each other, they could've gone for the "Hero has to go solo" idea and had Thinker mind control each member of Team Flash one by one.  So, by the finale, it's Team Flash vs. Flash.

I actually liked Ralph, and I'm glad he wasn't dead.  I actually hadn't considered that Ralph's brain would still be alive in there, and that he still had his original body.  I do feel that it's a bit of a copout because I think Ralph's death was supposed to have real weight, and Team Flash still hasn't really had a true loss at any point now.

And the way Thinker lost....I can't believe that DeVoe had a perfect plan with perfect contingencies, even if they'd brought in Kara (which they mentioned but still would've been nice to see them try....especially since Supergirl went on hiatus and it might've been possible for a small cameo)....and we're led to believe that his plan went perfectly until Marlize just...unplugged him?  Either he sees every option and has a plan for it, or he doesn't.  You can't give him perfect precognition and then just take it away.  If Marlize was a blind spot, that's fine.  But I don't think they really built that in well enough if that's even what happened.

I just think it was sloppy.  Which sucks because I think, overall, the season was better than it's been the last couple years.

I felt weird putting this in the post about his daughter, but I also didn't think it needed it's own page.

I watch Bar Rescue but apparently haven't watched a ton of it recently because Rob Floyd is now a contributor on there.  I watched an episode that he appeared on, and I thought he was great.  He actually seemed a bit nervous/jittery to be on camera, which I found a bit odd.  But he was very charismatic, and it seemed like he did a good job teaching (I don't know how much of it is fake).  It also seemed like he was having a great time.

I wasn't sure if they'd mention it, but they didn't make any reference to his previous acting experience.

Well I don't think it would necessarily need to involve major cast changes.  It could be Roy coming back to fill in for Oliver, with the rest of the team filling in as support for half the season.  And for the other half in Oliver's escape from Supermax, they could probably get away with the other villains being guest stars.

It could even work with the main plot being done in real time and the Oliver escape done in flashback (so that could take place in a matter of hours but the story takes place over the course of a couple months).

The crossover is going to be in December of next year - so it's reasonable that he'd be free by midseason.  If not, it'd also be reasonable for the government to let him out under certain circumstances (a Suicide Squad type of deal).

They did No Man's Land in a way that even Christopher Nolan wasn't able to.  It feels so comic booky, yet it still feels very grounded.  I still don't buy this version of Bruce as Batman because he's just not very big, but they've done a great job with just about everything else.

The only thing about this show that bothers me is Barbara....she's so irritating and over-acts in every scene (moreso than everyone else).  I think her type of character fits, but the actress bothers me.  Her "no boys allowed" storyline might be fun, though.

I think this country needs a lot more of this.  Since we can block people we don't agree with, and since so much of our interaction is no longer face-to-face, I think we're able to too-easily separate ourselves from people we disagree with.  And the more we separate from them, the less human they become.

If we put ourselves in the shoes of people we disagree with, they become more human.  And I think once we see each other on the same level, we can find compromises.  Today, in politics, we seem completely unable to find compromises.

Well, looks like the writers either didn't know about Infinity War or didn't want to mess with it.  Everything that happens in Agents of Shield happened before, and with the return coming after the Infinity War sequel, it might not even matter to the AoS universe.  Which is fine.  The Thanos threat played into Talbot's motivations, and that's all that really needed to happen.  Considering how much of Infinity War takes place in space and Wakanda, I don't think anything more needed to be shown or referenced.

With Gotham going off the air, it could make sense to use Batman villains.

I like that Batman exists but doesn't appear because he doesn't want to.  Arrow makes the most sense to add (I still wish they'd been able to use Nightwing), but I'm sure all the shows would want to use him.  Using him in a crossover and then a run on Arrow makes the most sense to me.

Next season:

Supergirl is moving to Sundays at 8pm Eastern
Legends and Arrow will be paired on Mondays (8pm Eastern and 9pm Eastern, respectively)
Flash and Black Lightning are paired on Tuesdays (8pm Eastern and 9pm Eastern, respectively)

Has anyone seen Black Lightning?  How does it tie in with the Arrowverse?  Does it at all?

I think Chris Carter has said in interviews that he never intended for the X-Files to have a proper ending.  Something like "life never ends, why should the X-Files?"

NOTE: I'm rewatching LOST with my wife right now (she's never seen it) and I'm enjoying every moment. I've forgotten more than I thought I would, but it's just so well done.  Even the average stuff is just very compelling to watch.

MORE AVENGERS SPOILERS!

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I could see that, but I'm hoping they made some sort of deal with the budget.  Maybe they get the same budget for 13 episodes that they had for 22 episodes.  It would probably take someone at Marvel flexing their muscle, but maybe it happened. 

It's actually a good opportunity for Marvel to play around with a world that is, technically, post-Avengers.  It could actually be a cool world to play with as a writer's room.

The problem is that, sorta like Fringe's final season, it'd be really weird to have the final season of SHIELD be in some sort of post-apocalyptic world that eventually gets erased.

He retweeted an ad for Bar Rescue (which I didn't realize he was on as a contributor) yesterday.  He might've done it with some down time or it might be required in his contract, but I wouldn't think that he'd be on Twitter, retweeting Bar Rescue, if things were really bad.

So maybe things are better?

I'd be very interested in seeing Infinity War aftermath on Agents of SHIELD.  But I don't know if they'd go there (I guess we'll find out Friday), especially when it's likely that the aftermath would get undone.

There's some cool stuff they could do.  But if the budget has been definitively slashed, maybe it could help things.

Or maybe they'll divert more money to it with less episodes.  We'll see....even with the slashed budget, I think the season has been entertaining.  And I'm watching it on my DVR way earlier than I used to, since I'm eagerly looking for clues onto what Thanos is up to

Saw the movie "Downsizing" this weekend.

Holy God....this movie was a mess.

When I first saw the trailers, I was fascinated by it because the concept is really amazing.  People voluntarily shrinking themselves, either for selfless (helping to save the planet) or selfish (instantly becoming "rich") reasons.  Then, with the added drama of the wife deciding to opt out at the last minute, leaving the protagonist small and alone in a new world.  There were so many interesting stories to tell in a world like this!

Then the movie came out, and I heard terrible things.  To the point where I read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia, decided it wasn't for me, and forgot about it.

But my wife was intrigued, and we decided to watch it.

Two things struck me about the first hour.  The first being that the movie was actually engaging and thought provoking.  The second that it doesn't seem to have been edited at all.  I haven't seen many movies that took the time to go through some many different scenes explaining exactly what's going on.  They have a small scene introducing the scientists that create the process....then a small scene introducing the science to the world....then a small scene of the world reacting, including a minor introduction to the protagonist....then the movie really starts in the present.  But, between each of those scenes, there was a time jump.  One scene happens - 5 years later.  Another scene happens - 10 years later.  There's even another time jump later in the movie.

It reminded me of the movie Surrogates, where they jump ahead year after year to show how we went from life now to life in a world full of Surrogates.  Except instead of a two-minute montage, it was a good 10-15 minutes of scene after scene showing bits and pieces of this new technology.  It was kinda bizarre (but done well).

There were things here and there that they brought up that seemed to be pretty cool.  They talk about Third World Countries using the technology to punish political prisoners.  They talk about how the economy is suffering because so many people are suddenly buying and consuming so much less stuff.  A drunk man confronts the protagonist about whether or not his vote should count as much as a "normal sized person" because he contributes less to the economy and is physically smaller.

All of these things could have been used to make a movie that tells a fantastical story that delves into real-world politics.  Or, if they wanted, they could've simply told a story about a man who makes a decision with his wife, and how her last-minute change of heart changes his life forever.

Instead....the movie decides to tell the story of a man who feels lost in his life, crushed by the weight of choices he's made in the past, who decides to help people.  He meets a housekeeper (from the aforementioned political prisoner story), and he's drawn into her selfless world of helping people.  Along the way, he's introduced to a plan to save humanity by entering an ark in Norway.

What's crazy about the 2nd half of Downsizing is how little it has to do with being small.  Outside of some brief scenes, the movie finishes without any scenes with "normal-sized people" - I could show you a full hour of this movie, and outside of some dialogue here and there and a couple of visual gags, you'd have literally no idea that the movie is about miniaturized people.

Don't get me wrong - the movie tells a (somewhat) compelling story about a man who feels called to his destiny.  About a guy who always wanted to heal people who sorta got swallowed up by life.  A man who takes a few leaps of faith before he's finally able to find contentment helping people.

But the movie is bizarrely structured and handled, as it were two different movies gruesomely sewn together like Frankenstein's monster.  It's like the writer of the film wanted to tell a story about a man who helps a political prisoner in a slum, and he only used the compelling miniaturization storyline to get the movie sold.  Or, like I said, he had half of one movie and half of another and just sewed them together to get a complete movie.

I didn't hate it.  But I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie that could've used its premise to go in a million different ways and decided to (almost) throw away the entire premise to tell such a "normal" story.  As if the movie "Lost in Translation" had an elaborate opening scene that explained the entire movie took place on the first colony on Mars, made to look like Japan.

Has anyone else seen this movie and had the same series of thoughts?

Regarding Infinity War:

I see where you're coming from, but I don't know if the small-scale moments were even possible with a movie like that.  They did their best here and there (Quill and Gamora, Thor and Rocket, Tony and Pepper, Thanos and Gamora, etc), but these types of movies lend themselves to big giant action sequences.  Although, to be honest, I found the Wakanda battle scene to be the worst of the movie.  I preferred the other, smaller action sequences.

(In fact, I would've gotten rid of the faceless army in general.  I know we needed some fun action sequences and big wins for our team, but I think fighting Thanos' generals and then Thanos himself would've been just as much fun.)

People have been saying that Infinity War overwrites the point of Ragnarok, but I don't see that.  Yes, Thanos destroyed half of the Asgardians, but half of them still survived.  Thor might've failed in saving all of them, but all of them were going to die on Asgard.  He still saved a ton of Asgardians because of that movie.  The eye stuff is weird because I think they could've kept it - I didn't see any particular reason to give him the eye back (they could've had him lose to Thanos because of depth perception or something).

That's actually the one thing I would've liked to have seen.  If Thor is really the warrior that can take Thanos down, I wish we could've seen how he lost so easily the first time.

I also wondered that....did Thanos "spare" the societies where he already destroyed half the life?  Or did places like Gamora's planet and Asgard lose another half?  I'm guessing, since it's Thanos' mind controlling the gauntlet, that he spared them.  But I wasn't sure how that worked.

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Regarding AoS and Infinity War....it's very strange to me that the aliens in the Confederacy are aware that Thanos is attacking Earth but don't seem that concerned about it.  Do they not know about Thanos' plan?  Because, you'd think, if they did....that the final fight on Earth wouldn't just be the Avengers....there'd be alien spaceships and superheroes and remnants of the Nova Corps and everyone that's still alive.

Because the Confederacy seems to be treating the conflict like "we wanted to plunder the Earth before Thanos got there...." not seeming to realize that Thanos is going to destroy half of *all life* - there's a 50% chance that he could kill any individual in the universe.  It should, in theory, be an all hands on deck vs. Thanos thing.

Very cool!  The show's not perfect, but they seem to have a great vision.  I'm glad they're going to get the chance to see it through.

Exactly.  Even if he was on the show but in the shadows *at SCPD*, then they could at least follow the "following orders" excuse for most of the policemen.  Right now, the policemen are openly following orders from some random plainclothesed guy.  How are any of these officers going to explain any of their actions?

Gotham has been on life support for a couple of seasons now.  It's crazy when these shows roll the dice when they know it could be their last season.  I know they weren't definitively told that it was the end, but the ratings haven't been great for a while.  It's been a bubble show all year.  It's crazy if they don't finish because they assumed they'd be renewed.

Same thing happened with the Last Man on Earth.  That show barely made it last season and ended this season on another cliffhanger.  I don't know why shows like that don't write a simple finale that would serve as a good series finale if things don't work out.  If they get renewed, it's always possible to create more story.  It's not possible to continue a show after a cliffhanger if your show is (predictably) cancelled.

On Arrow...

Diaz is, in theory, a great villain.  He has control of the city, essentially turning Team Arrow into fugitives without having to frame them for anything.  The problem is....I don't buy it.

Putting pressure on a few guys at the top...that makes sense.  But Diaz seems to have put pressure on everyone in the city, and I don't get that.  And the show isn't being particularly clear on what, exactly, is going on.

There's a couple of things that they seem to be saying.  The whole flash drive thing was because it had everyone on Diaz's payroll - but is he paying everyone off?  And wouldn't that be insanely expensive?  Is Diaz rich enough, even with the Quadrant's resources, to pay off every person in the government?  And if he is, is that even the best way to use those resources?  Seems like it's way too much to be spending, even for the level of control he has?

Or is he paying off certain people and leveraging everyone else?  Or is he counting on paying off / leveraging top people, and simply hoping that everyone else falls in line?  Because I don't buy that.  Is the entire SCPD borderline evil?  Because some of the stuff that Diaz is ordering street-level cops to do is beyond "following orders" - even if you compare it to stuff in Gotham, they're essentially saying that Jim Gordon would work as muscle....since there are dozens of cops who seem fine with "I want Oliver Queen dead" with no questions asked.

What I think, maybe, should've happened instead of the Green Arrow trial getting Oliver impeached....is some sort of huge disaster where a ton of SCPD officers were either killed or seriously injured - where the city has to impeach Oliver because of the fallout and the city has to "hire" a private security firm to act as the police - and those would all be Diaz men.  Because this season technically has to end with literally every government officer in prison because they're all openly committing crimes for a crime lord.

I'm enjoying the season, and I think Diaz is a great villain for Oliver to face.  But every time I think about it, the crazier it seems.

To be fair, we've only met two evil Laurels....and one is from a universe where all the good guys are bad.  So, technically, 2/3 of the Laurels we've seen are "good"

But, yeah, that's an interesting idea to keep Laurel involved.

If Team Flash is going to reach out to anyone....why not Kara?  She could fly into space and destroy the satellites and is completely organic.  She also might be invulnerable to DeVoe, who would have no access to Kryptonite as far as I know (it shouldn't be on Earth 1 and DeVoe can't travel to parallel Earths as far as we know).

That'd be cool.  Maybe the first half of the season is him doing missions for the Suicide Squad and making allies and enemies.  The second half of the season would be the breakout.

I 100% expect that Infinity War will have zero effect on the Netflix shows.

Back to Infinity War spoilers....

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So I watched a few minutes of Spider-Man Homecoming last night because it popped up on YouTube.  It was then that I remembered that Aunt May found out that Peter was Spider-Man.

To me, the Spider-Man death is the one that hurts the most.  And it isn't because I expect him to be dead because I don't.  While everyone else faced their death with relative grace and poise, Spider-Man might've been the only one in the entire universe that knew what was happening to him and faced it with true fear.  He begs for his life.

And it hurts because Peter, while being brave and strong and heroic, is a kid.  He's going to come back, and he'll be a hero again in his next solo film.  And that'll probably be fun and funny like Homecoming was.

But it's haunted me since I saw it because he's a kid in a very adult situation.  I've gone back and forth with the question of whether or not Peter knew that the plan involved him dying.  And I still don't know whether or not it's sadder for him to have known (and then freaked out realizing that dying, even for a noble cause, sucks) or whether or not he didn't know (and it's just a 15-year-old kid realizing he's going to die).  I know the moment is going to haunt Tony, but it still haunts me nonetheless.

And that's when I thought about Aunt May.  I know this is a younger, sexier Aunt May.  But it's still Aunt May.  And I realized that, while she doesn't know that Peter disappeared....she knows enough.  Infinity War takes place over a couple of days, and the inciting incident is a fight between Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man, and two alien invaders.  The news would obviously cover a huge spinning spaceship arriving in New York, the ensuing battle, and the ship disappearing.

There'd be witness accounts of who fought, and what happened to them.  Someone may have seen (and heck, there could be video) of Spider-Man and Iron Man on the spaceship (since no one would really know who Strange is).

And Aunt May knows that Peter is Spider-Man.  Even before she can get worried that Peter hasn't come home yet, she'd know that Peter boarded an alien spaceship that traveled light years away.  Even before people started disappearing, she'd know.  And even if she disappeared herself, she'd have a couple of days to understand that Peter was gone.  Not missing.  Gone.

And that made me sad again.