Comic Television Discussion – Week beginning May 13th

 

We are nearing the season’s end, or are at the end, and for at least one show, the return is Debatably Canceled.  Lucifer ends, but there are two more episodes hiding somewhere that were originally moved to Season 4, but now may be part of a home video release.  Supergirl deals with family members to fight the season’s big bad.  The Flash races his big bad to build a machine.  Supergranddad has to decide if he wants to save a city in a bottle.  Arrow advertises an Epic Final Battle, but still has two more episodes for the season.

Meanwhile Legion makes you question all of the ideas you’ve ever had including the sanity in trying to follow the show (but stays a beautiful high-budget art project) and the Agents wrap up their season, though they are renewed for an abbreviated sixth season.  Then the “teens” of Riverdale wrap their season with an election.

[All synopses (and titles) from Trakt.tv below the cut.  (If a show’s synopsis is a spoiler to you, do not click More…)]

Lucifer – S03E24 – A Devil of My Word – (Series Finale) – Shocked by someone’s death, Chloe, Lucifer and the rest of the team work together to investigate and take down the killer. Then, Lucifer has an epiphany, Maze decides to mend a broken friendship and Chloe finally sees the truth.

Supergirl – S03E18 – Shelter from the Storm – When Reign starts hunting Ruby, Supergirl and Alex work together to keep her safe. Supergirl and J’onn look to Sam’s mother for advice on how to stop Reign and come away with some shocking news.

The Flash – S04E22 – Think Fast – (Penultimate for Season 4) – When DeVoe assaults an A.R.G.U.S. facility to complete his Enlightenment Machine, Barry realizes the only way he can stop him is if he allows Cisco and Caitlin to accompany him into the facility. Still shaken by Ralph’s death, Barry isn’t sure he wants to risk any more of his friends’ lives and considers taking on DeVoe solo.

Krypton – S01E09 – Hope – (Penultimate for Season 1) – Seg must decide if he can make the ultimate sacrifice in service of the greater good of Kandor.

Arrow – S06E23 – Life Sentence – (Antipenultimate for Season 6) – With a new ally on his team, Oliver engages Diaz in an epic final battle.

Legion – S02E07 – Chapter 15 – A delusion starts like any other idea .. But ends in disaster.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – S05E22 – The End – (Season Finale) – Coulson’s life or death is the challenge the team finds themselves in, as the wrong decision will cause the destruction of Earth.

Riverdale – S02E22 – Chapter Thirty-Five: Brave New World – (Season Finale) – With Fred trailing in the polls, Archie steps in to lend a hand in his dad’s mayoral campaign. Veronica stays one step ahead after uncovering Hiram’s latest scheme. Elsewhere, Cheryl finalizes her emancipation from her mother, while FP makes a surprising announcement to Jughead and the Serpents. Finally, Betty confronts her darkest demons.

13 replies on “Comic Television Discussion – Week beginning May 13th”

  1. I was surprised to find out that Shield was coming back – I was fully expecting it to be cancelled. I’m not surprised that it’s for a 13 episode season. That seems to be the new standard – doing 10 to 13 episodes per season with minimal filler. Even a lot of 22+ episode shows have been doing basically two seasons (half and half) as we’ve seen with the past two seasons of Shield. Then there’s the timing of the next season – one might think that a move to summer would be a death blow but there have been quite a few shows that have achieved some level of success running through the summer and I think Shield can compete well with other summer shows.

    I actually think the unspecified summer release for the next season of Shield is smart. It will give them time to coordinate with whatever is going to happen in Avengers 4. (Presumably, there will be at least enough information sharing to make sure they don’t introduce a major inconsistency.) Considering the next season of Shield would have to pick up after the action in Avengers 4 completes, it would either have to use some macguffin to take itself out of the timeline, risk causing spoilers for Avengers 4, or end up doing something completely inconsistent if it was to air in the fall or winter. Whatever the reason, having the next season start after the release of Avengers 4 seems prudent.

  2. My wife says we should stop watching Riverdale. My only arguments were all weak arguments. We’ve already committed two seasons to it. The crew who makes Riverdale is the same crew for the upcoming Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and I love that comic so I am very hopeful about that show, and Riverdale might be tied to it. The third reason was that I include it on these posts, so I should watch it, shouldn’t I?

    • I would say no. You can include the summary, but not discuss it any further or, if you do, acknowledge you’re not watching it. It’s only tenuously connected to this site’s interests.

      Chilling Adventures, on the other hand….

    • I’ve been having the same debate with myself. Do I continue with Riverdale given the other stuff that I want to watch. I’m leaning toward “maybe I’ll watch it at some point in the future when I’m bored”. It’s on the same pile as a few other shows (mostly non-genre, and let’s be honest – Riverdale isn’t really genre).

  3. The comic book physics explanation they gave for “Flash Time” was the best explanation for almost everything they have done. Granted, it’s more or less saying ‘magic happens’, but it was a great reinforcement for my suspension of disbelief.

    • That’s the thing about suspension of disbelief. We can accept a great many completely implausible things in our fictional worlds as long as they’re internally consistent. And some attempt to justify what’s going on based on previously established information is made, either implicitly or explicitly.

      Also, “magic happens” is somewhat reasonable as an explanation given that magic is established in universe. I’ve basically decided that “dark matter”, “speed force”, “yellow sun power”, and actual magic are all magical macguffins of one form or another.

  4. I found this week’s Shield episode interesting. We knew the Earth couldn’t get destroyed so the stakes were all about the characters. How were they going to “break the loop”? I noticed that they carefully didn’t explain what was going on with the timeline other than a throwaway about time being malleable. I think we’ll find out that the other timeline still exists somewhere other than the gang’s memories (and if a certain character shows up in 2019, we’ll know for sure). And that’s consistent with other temporal manipulation that’s happened in the MCU (with the time gem).

    I suspect they’ll dive deeper into what really happened in the next season as they deal with the aftermath, though, depending on exactly what the outcome of Avengers 4 is, that may allow them to sidestep some things.

    • I imagine that by the time they come back, the rest of the MCU will be stable enough that it won’t matter what happens in this show. Marvel has done that for years with comics. World ending threats and global disasters in Captain America show no signs of it in Moon Girl, but a fuzzy enough time line lets it happen before or after each other.

      I’m just curious who the cast will be next season.

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