The mid-season finale arrives for Arrow in “Dark Waters.” It starts off well enough, following up on Oliver’s project to clean up the harbor. It looks like a huge success, with a lot of people turning out, and some good press coverage for Oliver. Of course, things don’t stay bright and cheery on Arrow for long, so I wasn’t terribly surprised when the event was attacked, although it was a new and different kind of attack, I’ll give them that.
Flash’s mid-season finale arrives with “Running to Stand Still.” The opening is creepy. Wells is running through what I believe is the Earth 2 STAR Labs, taunted by Zoom. Wells gets to some very impressive looking gun, but really, guns don’t work too well with speedsters involved. Suffice to say there is more taunting.
The iZombie mid-season finale is called “Cape Town,” another amusing title that works pretty well for the topic. In a very different beginning, a woman runs down an alley, pursued by two thugs. One grabs her purse, looking pleased. Then, suddenly, a masked and caped hero shows up and attacks them. Apparently, it didn’t go well, as the hero ends up in a trash truck the following day.
The Agents of SHIELD will get their mid-season break after “Maveth.” This is a very busy episode with a lot going on, some surprises, and a few twists I certainly didn’t see coming. At least one of the characters will quite literally never be the same. That gets said a lot, but it’s true this time out.
One thing you can count on with comic book superheroes: if they have powers, they will lose them at least once, probably more. Supergirl takes her turn at this trope in “Human For A Day.” The episode has a few surprises from her supporting cast, as well as showing what kind of hero she really is.
The Arrow/Flash team-up concludes in Arrow’s “Legends of Yesterday.” Even with a busy crossover event happening, we can’t get away from Flashback Theater. This week’s is about Hawkgirl and Hawkman in their lives in Ancient Egypt when they were Shayera and Khufu. Their forbidden love affair is discovered by a priest, who kills them and then, in the midst of a meteor strike, becomes the immortal Vandal Savage. Vandal vows to pursue them into their next lives and beyond as they lay dying.
They do manage to keep the clever titles coming in iZombie. This week’s is “The Hurt Stalker,” a nice twist from the movie The Hurt Locker. Between the episode titles and the little segment intros they do in comic book style, I do give the writers credit for a consistently high level of quality and creativity.
“Crush Syndrome,” the second part of Jessica Jones, starts off very soon after the first episode, in a very dark and grim place. She’s in a police interview room with Detective Clemmons. Clemmons is suspicious of her, and also starts asking a lot of questions about Luke Cage. Jessica is not happy that the NYPD was in her office without a warrant, but he points out that her office is part of the crime scene, so no warrant was needed.
The CW shows kick off another crossover event, beginning on Flash with “Legends of Today.” Obviously, this is a lead-in to January’s Legends of Tomorrow show, and a lot happens. This one opens with a small montage of Barry training, trying to push his powers to new levels. Wells looks on disapprovingly, saying that Barry is nowhere near fast enough to fight Zoom. Caitlin tries to look for a new approach, but Wells is pessimistic. Barry agrees he needs to be faster, but also has no ideas, so he goes off to see Patty.
“Closure” has a few surprises for the Agents of SHIELD. Some are early enough that I’m trying to figure out how to do this without spoilers. There’s enough going on that it could have been the mid-season finale, but that apparently is next week. It’s certainly an action-packed episode.
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