Agents of SHIELD is the first of the comic book hero shows back from the winter/holiday break. I suppose that makes sense. All the other heroes work for themselves, and SHIELD works for the government, so they can’t take the longer vacation. “Broken Promises” follows up on a few elements of the cliffhangers from last…
Luke Cage reaches the penultimate episode with “Soliloquy of Chaos,” which is one of their more poetic titles. Things start building up towards a major showdown for the finale, and they move the pieces around really well. They are setting up for what should be a really impressive last episode. They continue their trend of…
Luke Cage episode 11, “Now You’re Mine,” picks up right where episode ten, “Take It Personal,” left off. The gunfight is raging at Harlem’s Paradise, and people are wisely running for their lives. Cage is crouched behind the bar, shielding Misty as best he can with his bulletproof body. Cage signs for Claire to stay where she is, out of harm’s (at least immediate) way, and Shades is out on the street looking surprised. I keep thinking of Shades as Wile E Coyote and his succession of bosses (Stokes, now Diamondback) as the ACME products: Shades has things under control until something blows up in his face. I almost feel bad for him.
Luke Cage 10, “Take It Personal.” is a bit shorter on action than some of the other episodes, but makes up for it with surprise reveals and plotting. You can see things building up for what will likely be the big final conflicts. For someone who showed up so late in the story, Stryker is becoming a very central player to the various plots.
I’m not quite sure what they’re doing with the scheduling for Agents of SHIELD, but it’s getting a bit odd. They took a random few week break, came back last week, now this week is their “winter finale.” I guess working for SHIELD must come with a great vacation package.
After an odd few-week hiatus, the Agents of SHIELD return to “Deal With Our Devils.” Of course, with Ghost Rider running around, that might not be a figure of speech. What we do get is an interesting continuation of where things left off, and some pretty interesting story-telling techniques.
Luke Cage’s ninth episode is the somewhat confusingly titled DWYCK. They never explain this during the actual show, so I had to go hunting around a bit before I found out that means, “Do What You Can, Kid.” I don’t know where that’s from, but I’d never heard it/seen it before this. EDIT: Apparently the initials are from a song that had a somewhat shady meaning, and, as Cage tends to do, he gave it a better meaning.
“Manifest” is the seventh Luke Cage episode. It starts off with an amusing scene of Zip trying to do a gun deal. Cage walks up, and everyone runs off to his, “Do I even have to say it?” Zip makes an ominous comment and then runs off after his clients while Luke makes short work of the guns.
The jumping back and forth between time periods bit on tv shows is getting a bit old in my humble opinion. Yes, I admit I might be a bit sick of Flashback Theater on Arrow. But, credit where it’s due, Agents of SHIELD is at least being amusing with their titles. “Back In The Day,” and “Now,” are the settings. As makes more sense as the story goes on, this one is called “Good Samaritan.”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe adds not only a new character, but a whole new area to their shared world as the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange, debuts, bringing magic with him. Earlier movies (Thor, Thor: The Dark World) made some half-hearted attempt to invoke Arthur C Clarke’s comment about, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” With Dr. Strange, magic is most definitely not the same thing as science.
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