Arrow: The Man Under the Hood

To borrow a quote from Gandalf: "the board is set, the pieces are moving..." which is an appropriate summation for this episode, and the last episode, and quite possibly the next episode as well (I haven't seen it yet).

Though I can get a bit snarky in these reviews, I do enjoy Arrow (I wouldn't be writing about it if I didn't) and I'm in it for the long haul. That said, there's been some tripping up on the way to this season's finish line, and this episode in particular felt very "bitsy" in terms of what it was trying to do.

Which was to move things into position for the finale, deal with the fallout of the last episode's revelations, introduce two new characters for the spin-off, present the possibility of a mirakuru cure in the flashbacks, and bring back Roy. There's no thematic or narrative unity in any of those tasks, and as a result this episode felt like a checklist of things that had to be ticked off in order to proceed to the next one.

So, let's go through them all one by one.

Rewatch: The Tunnel: S01E01

The Tunnel: Sabotage is scheduled for early next year, so now seems as good a time as any to revisit the first series. Back in 2013 I made the decision not to watch the original Scandinavian drama Bron/Broen, partly because I didn't have time, and partly because I didn't want to watch two shows in quick succession that have virtually the same plot.

You probably know the setup by now: the dead body of a woman is found at the exact mid-point of the Eurotunnel, her head in France and her feet in Britain. Two sets of investigators are dispatched to the location: on the French side is Elise Wasserman (Clémence Poésy), a young Brigade Criminelle Captain with an Ambiguous Disorder (probably autism or Asperger's) that goes largely unmentioned, and on the British side is middle-aged Karl Roebuck (Stephan Dillane), an easy-going father of five children (to three different mothers, though he’s happily married to the third).

Yet when the time comes to move the body, it becomes apparent that they’re dealing with not one but two victims: the head and torso of the missing French MP has been severed at the waist, and the legs belong to a British prostitute that disappeared several months ago. Naturally, this forces the two sides to work together to track down the culprit.

Standing Tall #13

This giraffe is aptly named The Builder and is located where the Park Royal Hotel once stood. Now the site is called The Commons and serves as a welcome bit of green space in the middle of the city, though I have plenty of fond memories of the hotel: watching the Christmas Parade from its walls, riding up and down the glass elevator, and having bunch in its atrium with my aunt and sister.

Designed by artist Paulina Porebska, the giraffe is also apt in the sense it was sponsored by Harcourts, one of our real estate companies. I also think of it as a tribute to all the international rescue and construction workers that came to aid Christchurch in the clean-up effort.

The hard hat and fluorescent vest is familiar garb for any of the builders in the city, but I love the "skin" of the giraffe: a bright royal blue. Because why not? And it was a great contrast to the yellow. 

(In case you're wondering why I'm sticking my tongue out, it's because it was a hot day and I was wearing jeans. Not a good idea).

Arrow: Deathstroke

I will get through this season, so help me!

This was a fairly pivotal episode, one in which secrets are revealed and agendas become clearer, though at the same time the main storyline was complete nonsense. In order to recruit a bunch of convicts being transferred to a newly rebuilt wing at Iron Heights, Slade stages a diversion that involves kidnapping Thea off the street, sending a live feed of her to the mayoral candidacy debate, and leading the police and Oliver on a merry dance around the city.

Links and Updates

The last time I made one of these posts, the full-length Star Wars trailer was released the very next day. I've been dying to talk about it ever since.

On a scale of one to ten on the "how much do you love Star Wars?" spectrum, I would place myself at about a seven. I enjoy the films (even the prequels) but have never read any of the supplementary material or watched The Clone Wars – I wouldn't even know where to start. The original trilogy wasn't what I would call an intrinsic or formative part of my childhood, as it wasn't until I was about ten or eleven years old that I watched them in their entirety (and for some reason I ended up seeing The Return of the Jedi first).

But I enjoy them immensely, am looking forward to sharing them with my nephew, and fully appreciate their importance in cinematic history.

Review: Crimson Peak

This may sound impossible, but Crimson Peak was nothing like what I expected, and yet exactly what I expected. All the promotional material would have you believe it's a Gothic Horror, a misconception so great that Guillermo del Toro felt compelled to take to Twitter and insist that it was a Gothic Romance.

This difference became clear to me within the first twenty minutes of the film, which spends more time on the budding courtship between Edith Cushing and Thomas Sharpe than it does any of the nightly spectres. As such, I was left with my paradoxical statement: that Crimson Peak wasn't what I initially expected, but once the ball started rolling I knew exactly how it would unfold.

SPOILERS

Downton Abbey: S06E08

Well, that was ... that.

I'll admit it, over the last two weeks I fell into something of a Mary/Branson vortex. Deep down I knew it was never going to happen, and I could understand the logic of it not happening, and I will continue to appreciate their platonic (and now explicit) love for each other, but I enjoyed their rapport so much this season that I let myself get caught up in the hope that Fellowes would pull a last minute switcheroo and surprise us all.

Nope.

In the lead-up to this episode the various ship manifestos strewn across the internet calmed me down a little (off-the-wall theorizing usually has the opposite effect on my expectations that such echo chambers usually create) and I've come to the conclusion that when it comes to plot, writers will throw all sorts of red herrings into the mix. But when it comes to shipping, what you see is what you get.

Which of course, is exactly why viewers often take the path less travelled (or the ship less sign-posted) when it comes to the relationships on their screen – they prefer the slow burn to the obvious route.

But I can live with that disappointment. What I'm really galled at is the way the long-simmering Edith/Mary feud was handled. Because I was confident it would play out far better than it was.