Post by stargazer1682 on Jun 4, 2020 20:18:26 GMT
Honestly, I wasn't nearly as impressed with this episode as the first two episodes. There were a few decent parts, but the story felt weak and a lot of pointless plot points that felt like something you'd see from an Arrowverse show.
The part where Pat took Courtney to the Justice Society headquarters was nice, but that felt like something that should have happened in either the first episode or the second at the latest. Ditto the ending, when Courtney takes the Justice Society gear to recruit new members; and I don't know how I feel about that either, as it feels a little forced.
And what's up with the JSA having giant banners of themselves hanging in their headquarters? I can buy the villains doing that, but it seems pretty narcissistic of the heroes.
I'm seriously over the trend that happens virtually every new show now to take for fucking ever just to set up the core premise of who the main characters are and what their dynamic is; get to the fucking point. Maybe I'm to impatient, but I saw nothing wrong with how they used to start a series by using the pilot to layout the framework of the series and then just hit the ground running telling the stories. Look at the first episode of Buffy, within the first two hours of the series (and let's be honest, "The Harvest" was part two of the pilot) we knew the "sitch" as Buffy would say of who the main characters were and what their deal was. We met Buffy, Joyce, Giles, Xander, Willow, Cordelia all in the first episode too; plus the big bad of the Master and they still advanced the plot by having the Master try to free himself.
Meanwhile, three episodes in it's obvious they're going to make Courtney and the girl who's being harassed and called a "slut" best friends, but Jesus they're dragging that out.
And while I applaud Courtney for trying to stick up for her, the dialog felt contrived.
Then of course they try to go to the opposite extreme by trying to rush an investment in a new character, just so they can kill them and try to milk some kind of sentiment for an intentional, yet seemingly pointless death.
I fully expect this magic kid (Joey, I think they said his name was) to also befriend Courtney in a Xander-esque capacity (not to lean too hard on the Buffy comparison), but come on, we're supposed to give a shit about this kid getting killed by Icicle just because we saw a couple of scenes of him doing some shitty card tricks (badly); and sharing one scene with the main protagonist? Let us learn more than his name first; or even just let us be sure his name is in fact Joey if you want us to care when kill him off.
And what the hell was up with the level of enthusiasm for this school's talent show? I think they said something about "regionals" or some bullshit, but come on. Is this one of those performing arts highs schools? And if it is, why did Courtney seemed so surprised by everyone being in costume? Why are they all in costume during the regular school day? There's need to be in costume all fucking day, rather than change right before your performance; that's what the call time is for. It's the time ahead of the show during which you get ready.
Why were so many students gathering around to watch this lameass card trick? Who would give a shit? Are they all stoned? Did serious no one else, besides the one guy, not see the card Courtney picked, to realize he later picked the wrong card? Because they absolutely would have called him on screwing up the trick if anyone else had seen.
I'm also starting to think the writers have no fucking clue what to do with Courtney's mom. What was the point of her coming home only to find Pat and Courtney were out? And why did they choose that exact moment to leave and take a tour of the JSA HQ, when at least Pat knew that what's name would be home before they could possibly get back; to say nothing of his own son.
Her being at...whatever that meeting was for city development, seemed random - especially since I either missed it or it wasn't made real clear who Icicle is supposed to be in his public life. Is he the mayor or something? Her comment on the community theatre was yet another instance in this episode that seemed random and kind of forced. And why are these characters, who I can only assume are elected officials, at least in the context of that scene, talking about the community theatre losing money; it's not a fucking subsidiary of a business you own. Maybe that theatre group is renting space from the city or something, but if they're losing money, that's not really the city's problem, unless they're in a position to support it; and they're not losing money from that fact, unless the theatre group is behind on their rent. But considering how big of thing the fucking high school talent show is, I'm kind of astounded to hear them suggest their community theatre is losing money. If they're losing money it's probably because all of the fucking high school students keep renting their costumes and wearing them all day, getting them all sweaty and stained at lunch (theatre rule #12: never eat in costume); and then drop them back off without washing them, so the theatre has to drop a shit ton of money to have all of those costumes drycleaned.
But apparently the writers just needed some contrived excuse to show Courtney's mom expressing interest in what's happening in her town to justify her joining whatever board or committee we see her attending later in the episode; rather than just having her say she'd decided to get involved by serving on this committee or whatever, like any normal fucking person would. And how much you want to bet it's not even the fucking the community theatre board she's joining, but just some random community development committee or something? Or even who fucking cares? Because in three episodes they've given her about as character much development as the kid they killed off this week; and I'm not even sure they've mentioned her name. It seems probable they did, but I'll be damned if I can remember it. So far the only defining aspect of her character is that she's played by Amy Adams, who is apparently a vampire, seeing as she doesn't appear to have aged in the last 20 years. We sure as hell haven't been shown anything to show that she and Pat are actually in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship. I can't even remember if they said they were married. I think they did, but much like her name, I can't fucking remember.
And why did Icicle kill Joey? What possible purpose did that serve? He seemed to have an ulterior motive for it, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what it could be, other than naming the community theatre after him and milking people's emotions over that. But they couldn't even be bothered to draw an association between him and the community theatre to make that make sense.
Is Icicle omnipotent, that he can so effortlessly manipulate the environment from a distance? He can light blow, from wherever the fuck he was, and make the road/bridge ice over in just the right spot?
Why would Joey just leap into traffic like that, just to retrieve of his stupid fucking playing cards? Spend a buck and buy another pack? A lot of card tricks tend to bend up or even tear their cards, so I'm sure you're regularly buying new decks anyway. Even if the road wasn't suddenly icy, he jumped into oncoming traffic, without a care of any cars heading his way. It's not like the ice made the car speed up; it just made it harder for the car to stop when some asshole jumps out in front of him.
And why should we care that his father is also murdered? It was obvious from the start that he was probably also a former member of the Injustice Society; and given how hard they leaned into the magic stuff in his introductory scene, it was equally obvious that he possessed real magic. Yet apart from whipping out his wand, so to speak, we don't actually see him display any real magic. Nor do they really tell us anything worth knowing about him throughout the rest of the episode; other than he was apparently some elected official.
Was Courtney's mom filling his vacancy? Was the why Icicle killed him? Because that just seems round about.
And, shock, gasp, the boy Courtney was talking to earlier turns out to be the son of Icicle! Who could possibly see that coming...other than people watching it with the sound on (and probably a few without sound)?
The part where Pat took Courtney to the Justice Society headquarters was nice, but that felt like something that should have happened in either the first episode or the second at the latest. Ditto the ending, when Courtney takes the Justice Society gear to recruit new members; and I don't know how I feel about that either, as it feels a little forced.
And what's up with the JSA having giant banners of themselves hanging in their headquarters? I can buy the villains doing that, but it seems pretty narcissistic of the heroes.
I'm seriously over the trend that happens virtually every new show now to take for fucking ever just to set up the core premise of who the main characters are and what their dynamic is; get to the fucking point. Maybe I'm to impatient, but I saw nothing wrong with how they used to start a series by using the pilot to layout the framework of the series and then just hit the ground running telling the stories. Look at the first episode of Buffy, within the first two hours of the series (and let's be honest, "The Harvest" was part two of the pilot) we knew the "sitch" as Buffy would say of who the main characters were and what their deal was. We met Buffy, Joyce, Giles, Xander, Willow, Cordelia all in the first episode too; plus the big bad of the Master and they still advanced the plot by having the Master try to free himself.
Meanwhile, three episodes in it's obvious they're going to make Courtney and the girl who's being harassed and called a "slut" best friends, but Jesus they're dragging that out.
And while I applaud Courtney for trying to stick up for her, the dialog felt contrived.
Then of course they try to go to the opposite extreme by trying to rush an investment in a new character, just so they can kill them and try to milk some kind of sentiment for an intentional, yet seemingly pointless death.
I fully expect this magic kid (Joey, I think they said his name was) to also befriend Courtney in a Xander-esque capacity (not to lean too hard on the Buffy comparison), but come on, we're supposed to give a shit about this kid getting killed by Icicle just because we saw a couple of scenes of him doing some shitty card tricks (badly); and sharing one scene with the main protagonist? Let us learn more than his name first; or even just let us be sure his name is in fact Joey if you want us to care when kill him off.
And what the hell was up with the level of enthusiasm for this school's talent show? I think they said something about "regionals" or some bullshit, but come on. Is this one of those performing arts highs schools? And if it is, why did Courtney seemed so surprised by everyone being in costume? Why are they all in costume during the regular school day? There's need to be in costume all fucking day, rather than change right before your performance; that's what the call time is for. It's the time ahead of the show during which you get ready.
Why were so many students gathering around to watch this lameass card trick? Who would give a shit? Are they all stoned? Did serious no one else, besides the one guy, not see the card Courtney picked, to realize he later picked the wrong card? Because they absolutely would have called him on screwing up the trick if anyone else had seen.
I'm also starting to think the writers have no fucking clue what to do with Courtney's mom. What was the point of her coming home only to find Pat and Courtney were out? And why did they choose that exact moment to leave and take a tour of the JSA HQ, when at least Pat knew that what's name would be home before they could possibly get back; to say nothing of his own son.
Her being at...whatever that meeting was for city development, seemed random - especially since I either missed it or it wasn't made real clear who Icicle is supposed to be in his public life. Is he the mayor or something? Her comment on the community theatre was yet another instance in this episode that seemed random and kind of forced. And why are these characters, who I can only assume are elected officials, at least in the context of that scene, talking about the community theatre losing money; it's not a fucking subsidiary of a business you own. Maybe that theatre group is renting space from the city or something, but if they're losing money, that's not really the city's problem, unless they're in a position to support it; and they're not losing money from that fact, unless the theatre group is behind on their rent. But considering how big of thing the fucking high school talent show is, I'm kind of astounded to hear them suggest their community theatre is losing money. If they're losing money it's probably because all of the fucking high school students keep renting their costumes and wearing them all day, getting them all sweaty and stained at lunch (theatre rule #12: never eat in costume); and then drop them back off without washing them, so the theatre has to drop a shit ton of money to have all of those costumes drycleaned.
But apparently the writers just needed some contrived excuse to show Courtney's mom expressing interest in what's happening in her town to justify her joining whatever board or committee we see her attending later in the episode; rather than just having her say she'd decided to get involved by serving on this committee or whatever, like any normal fucking person would. And how much you want to bet it's not even the fucking the community theatre board she's joining, but just some random community development committee or something? Or even who fucking cares? Because in three episodes they've given her about as character much development as the kid they killed off this week; and I'm not even sure they've mentioned her name. It seems probable they did, but I'll be damned if I can remember it. So far the only defining aspect of her character is that she's played by Amy Adams, who is apparently a vampire, seeing as she doesn't appear to have aged in the last 20 years. We sure as hell haven't been shown anything to show that she and Pat are actually in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship. I can't even remember if they said they were married. I think they did, but much like her name, I can't fucking remember.
And why did Icicle kill Joey? What possible purpose did that serve? He seemed to have an ulterior motive for it, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what it could be, other than naming the community theatre after him and milking people's emotions over that. But they couldn't even be bothered to draw an association between him and the community theatre to make that make sense.
Is Icicle omnipotent, that he can so effortlessly manipulate the environment from a distance? He can light blow, from wherever the fuck he was, and make the road/bridge ice over in just the right spot?
Why would Joey just leap into traffic like that, just to retrieve of his stupid fucking playing cards? Spend a buck and buy another pack? A lot of card tricks tend to bend up or even tear their cards, so I'm sure you're regularly buying new decks anyway. Even if the road wasn't suddenly icy, he jumped into oncoming traffic, without a care of any cars heading his way. It's not like the ice made the car speed up; it just made it harder for the car to stop when some asshole jumps out in front of him.
And why should we care that his father is also murdered? It was obvious from the start that he was probably also a former member of the Injustice Society; and given how hard they leaned into the magic stuff in his introductory scene, it was equally obvious that he possessed real magic. Yet apart from whipping out his wand, so to speak, we don't actually see him display any real magic. Nor do they really tell us anything worth knowing about him throughout the rest of the episode; other than he was apparently some elected official.
Was Courtney's mom filling his vacancy? Was the why Icicle killed him? Because that just seems round about.
And, shock, gasp, the boy Courtney was talking to earlier turns out to be the son of Icicle! Who could possibly see that coming...other than people watching it with the sound on (and probably a few without sound)?
