Tuesday 6 June 2017

Talkie Tuesday: Season Finales

"Who's turn is it, anyway?"


Hello everyone!

This week's blog post is going to be slightly different as I forgot, just a tiny bit, about a promise I made to write it all out once the regular shows in season through the year came to a close. Well, they've certainly been on hiatus now, and still no post from me! 

You'd think by now I'd learn to actually make note of what I should or shouldn't write.

Nope. Not me.

In any event, after reliving through Pirates 5 in the beginning of the week, it's time to turn my attentions somewhat closer to the smaller screens again. This post will not, in fact, delve into all the details about what happened during each season finale I'll be talking about, but it will certainly give you enough information to go look them up if you feel inclined to watch, and haven't already!

Come to think of it I may rewatch some of them, just because they were so amazing ...

We'll be doing these finale recaps in order of their appearance per day, not alphabetically, because I watch so many shows it's a miracle my head is still attached to my shoulders.


So starting with Monday, we have a number of shows, but we'll begin with Dancing with the Stars. This season had its ups and downs and some clear favourites that emerged very early on, but I was very happy when Emma and Rashad won the Mirrorball trophy at the end. Emma certainly deserves it after all the hard work she's put in, and Rashad was the one who had the journey - from non dancer to dancer.

Supergirl was a bit wonky this season, too, with a lot of filler episodes that were actually better than the main season arc, and it's pretty obvious the CW writers have yet to figure out a recipe for depicting a steady, stable romance on television: with the Daxamites attacking National City, Supergirl and Superman team up to fight them off, but it's Kara who eventually leads the fight by challenging Rhea to a duel. However, Rhea doesn't mean to honour the rules of engagement, having her forces still attack the city in the meantime, forcing Kara to release lead particles into the atmosphere, which are lethal to Daxamties - including Mon-El, who she confesses her love to but has to inevitably send him off into space. The season ends with a flashback to the day Krypton died, showing that another baby was sent out into orbit, from a house whose sigil is a skull - WHO has that, I wonder?


Timeless is thankfully coming back for a second season, just days after they announced its cancelation! I was very happy about this, because even though the premise is quite similar to what Legends of Tomorrow are doing (jumping around history, that is), this is a more reality-based show that keeps hearts pumping. Its first season was intriguing in laying out the foundations for Rittenhouse, but now it's time to see precisely what these goons are up to!

That leaves us with Taken since Shadowhunters just had it's mid-season premiere, and Taken was ... well. It was certainly interesting and I loved watching it because I enjoyed the movies with Liam Neeson, but as a show it's certainly still looking for a surer footing. Clive Standen does an amazing job in his role as Brian, but the problem I see is how to bring this man to the agent he is in the movies - not to mention, a little support from his team would also go a long way at the end of the day. He's been with them long enough now to warrant some, not the usual 'don't do this again' spiel. And since he's currently caught in a cell somewhere with the government denying he ever existed ... well.


Tuesdays are a little leaner on shows, but we'll start with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that probably had its most explosive season to date, and despite the pickup coming fairly late in the game, it DID come. Thankfully! This season was broken up into three separate blocks, with the last one probably being the most intriguing as we enter a virtual world and get to deal with AIDA who goes completely bonkers after she realises things don't go her way in the real world (since obviously, Daisy & Co are getting their pals back out into it). It's a race against the clock to stop her from unleashing more of that blasted book, however, which includes enlisting the help of Ghost Rider, who eventually takes AIDA down and goes off with the book proper. And our agents? Most of them now have memories of two separate lives, and while they expected the government to come arrest them (hence them going off to eat, a very lovely nod to the first Avengers movie), but in the end we see they end up in outer freaking space! What's going on with THAT? Now we have to wait a full year for more of it!

Legends of Tomorrow is the most light-hearted of the superhero shows currently on television, and I love the goofs of it. The season finale, however, showcased that even goofy isn't always enough to save time. Going back and actually meeting their past selves while they try to stop Thawne from rewriting reality, the team eventually succeeds, but says farewell to Rip, who's decided to go his own way. And as for the lot of them ... they land in the middle of mayhem and chaos as dinosaurs run around LA, among other miscreants. Looks like someone literally broke time!


The Flash suffered this season, I can't say it hasn't. Originally much more light hearted and comedic than its mothership, Arrow, this season turned into a long line of episodes trying to (unsuccessfully) bridge the gap between its original fluffiness and the new shadowy mood. In the season finale, fan theories proved correct because Iris does not, in fact, die, as HR takes her place. Savitar-Evil Barry DOES die, shot by Iris, but the happily ever after doesn't quite follow. Caitlin/Frost is in limbo between who she used to be and who she now is, and her romance with Tom Felton's Julian didn't even get kickstarted before she grinds it into dust. Most importantly, however, the Speed Force comes for Barry, as a speedster must always be in that prison he created, and he says goodbye to everyone before stepping into it and ... disappearing. Which is honestly a GAH moment since the Flash isn't the Flash without Barry Allen.

On to Wednesdays, however, and Arrow! Which had to have had the most explosive finale of all finales that week, as I had to watch it through two times before I could cope with it all. Oliver teams up with Nyssa al Ghul, Malcolm Merlyn and Slade Wilson to save his friends and family. The lot of them end up with Slade and Nyssa aftr Malcolm ostensibly sacrifices himself to save Thea - and they can't get off the island via plane because it's been sabotaged, so they need Slade to lead them across the island to an A.R.G.U.S. boat. Meanwhile, Oliver battles it out with Adrian and saves his son, but Adrian kills himself, igniting the kill switch for all the landmines on Lian Yu, forcing ALL of us to wonder just who's going to survive the inferno to come back to Star City. Words do not do this finale justice, people, so make sure you watch it if you haven't yet. Arrow pulled out all the stops for this one and I can't wait to see what it brings in season 6 since we've finished with the island flasbacks now.


Things were a bit shakier with Blindspot, because the Sandstorm plot, while okay, wasn't nearly as interesting as the regular way this show began, ie solving individual tattoos off Jane's body. That was an interesting premise to follow, but the Sandstorm plot was so prolonged I couldn't wait until it was over. And it ended well enough, actually, with Shepherd subdued and stuffed into a black site with Naz interrogating her, a nuclear disaster averted, and Jane and Weller in bed together. FINALLY. But then we flashFORWARD a couple of years when Jane is on her own in the middle of nowhere when Weller finds her. Obviously, they still love each other (might have even married), but something drove Jane away. Only, now Kurt needs her help - the rest of the team's been kidnapped, and a box left behind with her name on it, which produces a weird glow all over her tattooed body. Since Jane left her brother walk in the finale as opposed to killing him, my bet is Roman is back to play a game. We'll see.

The 100 started off spectacularly well but then fizzled towards the end with some poor writing choices. With the bunker now open to all the clans, Octavia is named leader of the lot of them as they seal off against Praimfaya, while Clarke & Co hustle to get to space and back to the Ark. They mostly do - sans Clarke, and I'm annoyed with Clarke's story more than anyone else's. You'd think she'd have learned by now that dealing in absolutes won't work, and it's getting old. Anyway, flashFORWARD six years ahead, and she's alive, with a little Nightblood grounder beside her, trying to communicate with Bellamy on the Ark, saying the bunker has gone dark when a space ship begins to land. But it's not Bellamy - it looks to be some sort of prison transport, written in English, so now we're supposedly going to see MORE people survived the original nuclear disaster away from the Ark - or maybe they're aliens, for real. Who knows?


Thursdays are my days off (whew) and then on Friday I get to enjoy Hawaii Five-0 and the Originals. The Originals are rushing towards a finale and a confrontation with the Hollow (here's to hoping Elijah comes back in all his daper glory soon), while H50 is already done for the year, and I can't say I was completely happy with the ending. The storyline was a typical Five-0 really: McGarrett going SEAL on the lot of them as they rush to save a shipment of girls from human trafficking, which leads to him battling it out on a moving truck and Danny having a near heart attack. They manage to save the girls, but even as they celebrate, Steve admits to Danny that he's been having trouble from mild radiation poisoning he sustained during an earlier episode, and Kono goes rogue because for some reason she thinks she can deal with the sex trafficking on her own without telling anyone. I'm annoyed with Kono, and worried about Steve since there've been hints Alex O'Loughlin might leave the show after season eight, although Lenkov has since stated that may not be the case. Fingers crossed this gets sorted without any unnecessary exits!

And finally, Once Upon A Time, which I gave up watching somewhere towards the end of this season because I couldn't deal with all the back and forth anymore. Given that season 7 is supposed to be a mild reboot, I'm going to check in with the premiere to see what happens, since most of the lead actors have now departed from the show with their happily ever afters, but we'll see.

And that's a wrap! On most of them, at least. There's a whole lot of shows out there and I've already penned down the new ones I want to see next season, but for the time being, I'm going to enjoy a summer off.

Well. Mostly.

xx
*images not mine

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