Pop Culture Princess

Pop Culture Princess
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Thursday, January 22, 2015

Fish is about to fry on Gotham, The Flash speeds back and the sister dilemma on Downton Abbey

Quite a bit of business went in Gotham this week, as Jim Gordon managed to bluff his way back onto the police force,thanks to the revenge antics of the Electrocutioner, and is successful in reclaiming his former badge.

However, the biggest plot in motion fell apart, as Fish Mooney made her move on Falcone by "kidnapping" her pawn Liza and giving him the option of leaving town for good with his beloved. Falcone, thanks to a heads-up from Oswald and his own inner instincts, caught onto the set-up and insulted by Fish's use of the memory of his mother to manipulate him, took matters literally in his own hands(goodbye,Liza!).

That whole ploy seemed to be rather weak tea to me; as someone planning to conquer a criminal empire, surely Fish considered a much more hostile takeover there. Leaving former allies turned enemies alive is almost always a bad idea, as her old pal The Penguin is living proof of. That Oswald played a prime part in knocking the blocks out of her sinister structure is quite the salt to the fresh wounds to come to our Miss Mooney, no doubt about it.

However, I do have the feeling that she might be rescued at some point(Alfred does own her a favor,after all, and he is quite the bad ass) from her gruesome fate but not without some serious payback being added to Fish's bill. Just have to wait and see, which shouldn't be too long:



The Flash returned from it's brief winter break this week with not one but two(and possibly a third) villains as Captain Cold recruited a flame bug pal of his to be Heat Wave.

These bad boys made their bid to rule the roost by pulling heists in order to draw Flash out into the open and  kudos must be granted to the casting department for pairing up the former Prison Break stars(Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell) as the bad guys.

The instant chemistry between these wicked warriors makes the threat from their fire and ice weapons all the more believable and menacing. That wasn't the only tough situation for Barry to deal with, as Iris moving in with Eddie proved to be an emotional toll on him and her dad.

Also, the hovering threat of the Reverse Flash came close to sidelining Barry's hero path as Dr. Wells kept pushing his guilt buttons(you are so evil, Wells, can't wait for your true colors to be revealed!) in order to make Barry stick to training for another rematch.

This show is all kinds of good and it just keeps getting better. I would like a little less naivete on Barry's part but that takes time, plus when the real deal behind the Reverse Flash is made known, the pay off will be even sweeter. In the mean time, this bout of double trouble with Captain Cold and Heat Wave was a great way to start things up again:



 My patience with Lady Mary is growing rather thin, as her big dilemma on Downton Abbey this season is pursuing her sex life. I don't begrudge her wanting some sexy time between the sheets but she is dragging other people into her personal business(some rather reluctantly) and that's not cool.

Mind you, she's a widow and should be able to enjoy a romp in the hay now and then,despite the standards of the time period, yet she is sort of leading Tony on about getting married, which is not the right thing to do in any decade.

Her whole "I need to be sure before taking that step" attitude seems to be an excuse to have her cake and eat it, too. Yes, men of that period could and did do the same thing but selfish is selfish, in my opinion and Mary has always been an entitled miss who never stops to think about the effects of her actions upon others. Plus, making Anna hide her birth control at her private home for her is so "oh,please!" there.

Contrast that with Lady Edith's near silent agony as her frequent visits to her love child are making the adopted mother(who doesn't know that Edith is the birth mom) so upset that she had to be banished temporarily from seeing her baby girl Marigold.

What kills me is how blind her family is to Edith's pain. Granted, they have plenty on their plate as it is but even the staff can see how much misery the poor woman is in-why doesn't anyone buy a fricking clue already? *sigh* I know this is the usual way that Crawleys treat Edith but it pains me, nonetheless.

 Mary tends to ignore her sister at best and sneer dismissively at her suffering at the worst yet would be so wrong for these two to have some sort of compare and contrast heart to heart at some point? If there is, I hope that Edith gives her hell and wins the fight, for once:


RANDOM NOTES:

PENNY DREADFUL: The Showtime series returns this April, with a new set of chills and thrills and I for one intend to drink down every ghoulish drop. I only hope that this new season ups the ante on the terrors presented in their first go-round:






1 comment:

Thaddeus said...

The Flash was great fun again, which is pretty much par for the course. I like that they don't make either the leads nor the villains too dumb or have them do things for pure convenience's sake.

That said, I may be approaching a but of burn out on CW shows generally. They all have a strong knack for poorly or too quickly-handled drama that always boils down to feeling like teen angst bs. It's part of why I ditched on Arrow, and I hope that either I stop caring about it, or the show runners stop doing it.

Then again, the teen angst stuff feels a little more apt on the light-hearted Flash, as opposed to the supposedly grim and gritty Arrow.