This episode was kind of disappointing because it made the four that preceded it feel a bit like unnecessary filler. Like the show took obnoxiously long to set up it’s characters and world; it did in four episodes what it could have done in one or two. This episode made me feel like a lot of what happened in the first four episodes had little to nothing to do with what the main thrust of this series will be, which was only now introduced almost halfway through the season, and that is the missing children, the mysterious experiments that were conducted, the vaccine and Tobias’ anti-aging serum. This episode made it seem like the conspiracy and cover up surrounding them will be what Black Lightning will be up against and they should have come into play three episodes ago. It feels very late for them to be introducing the main conflict.
Tobias’ anti-aging serum was the first new piece of information that we were given and it was revealed in such a forced, random way. With Gambi just suddenly blurting it out, mentioning that Tobias and Tori use it. His entire exchange with Tobias was the firs time I considered that Jefferson perhaps didn’t know that Tobias was still around. Which…why? And how? And Gambi has a secret past with Tobias? Since when? That was also delivered very randomly. I don’t believe that Jefferson knows about that either. Gambi is just all around lying and hiding things from Jefferson and there has so far been no indication as to why. He just is at this point. Plus, it looks like Lady Eve and company have something against him to boot!
I’m pretty sure that Lady Eve and company were behind the experiments, of which the purpose was perhaps the creation of the vaccine, which I’m quite certain is the same thing – or at least the basis for – Tobias’ anti-aging serum. If there were any hints before that Tobias was older than he looks, I must have completely missed them. That came completely out of left field. I’m assuming he was born in either the 40’s or 50’s, since in the flashback to his childhood, his father’s hair pointed to it taking place in the 60’s or 70’s and Tori looked to be around ten years old. That would put him somewhere in his 60’s or 70’s. So he’s quite old.
The show successfully managed to make me sympathise with Tobias – who I don’t much care for – by going into his back story with his father and how he mistreated him because of his albinism. It explains why Tobias doesn’t like Black people. It didn’t excuse Tobias’ actions, but it made me understand him as a character. It also made me kind of root for him to kill his father. After however many years of now seeing him (or Tori), the man clearly knew what Tobias was there for. Still, he was a dick to him. Had he in his old age come to realise what a terrible father he had been, I would have felt sorry for him. But the man was unapologetic to the end. Also, Tobias has super strength confirmed? If the vaccine and the serum are the same thing or the latter is based on the former, it would explain it.
I also believe Lady Eve and company to be behind the disappearance of these nine children. Clearly this is where Jefferson got his super powers from. He could be one of the nine, or a tenth child that they never got their hands on. The experiments and vaccine were also the subject of the story that got Jefferson’s father, Alvin, killed. Soon, they’ll put Anissa’s life in danger since she’s busy looking into the entire ordeal as well. As the character newly discovering her powers, it makes sense that Anissa would be the one to uncover and investigate this. The question is why Jefferson never did. But I digress.
I did not like Anissa’s super suit at all. It looked like it was all about style over function. Whether or not that was the production team’s fault or written as an oversight on the part of the character is neither here nor there. The actual body suit I don’t really care about, although I doubt she has a decent range of motion in it . The problem was her lack of a mask. A bar of gold makeup over your eye area does not a mask make. It in no way hides your identity. Plus, she broke into a storage container without wearing gloves. That is the most basic of the basics. Further, buying it from a lingerie store made little sense. If she ever ended up on CC TV footage that got out to the public, the store clerk would know it was her. It wasn’t like she was someone just walking around the store. She interacted with him for an extended period. Secret identities 101, Anissa.
Random thoughts:
- He can fly!
- Tasers kill people too!
- This is why you use headphones.
- How do you sell something that expired three years ago?
- Tobias and these fish! Are they going to eat him in the end?
- Does everyone use a school project as an excuse for looking into their family history?
- Lol Jefferson’s proud that Jennifer won the fight.
- I thought that was anthrax.
- Ask questions first Black Lightning!
Black Lightning airs Tuesdays at 9PM on The CW.
For someone as confrontational as Christina, it’s unbelievable that seemingly every time people confront her she starts crying. Those two things don’t go together. I understand that in that situation in particular she had just come off of a bad experience at panel – she was in the bottom two – but that had a lot to do with her attitude and her behaviour. That was not the first time she cried after a confrontation. I don’think that she was playing the victim either, though, because she doesn’t seem to realise how she comes off.
Sandra was fun and energetic. Jeana was fierce and poised. Kyla was cute but boring. Liberty said that she didn’t know how to act and it showed, she did okay though. Brendi K. just forgot how to walk and be a model; she looked a little busted. Rio married modelling and performing well. Khrystyana was extra in the best way. Christina was boring and she tried too hard; that little jig she did at the end of the runway was embarrassing. Shanice was sexy and funny. Erin went back to the 80’s with her hair, but she looked goo and had personality.
Kyla and Liberty got into a little clash of ideals concerning feminism and gender equality. Liberty being a Trump supporter, it’s obvious which side of the discussion she was on. I got what she was trying to say about not wanting to be treated the same as a man in all things, all the time, but she didn’t express herself well. Maternity leave was one of the worst examples she could have used to illustrate her point and saying that it’s something that women need and men don’t just made her look like she doesn’t value the contribution that men make in parenting or acknowledge how much they struggle as new parents as well. She overall came off as ignorant.’
Rio brought her A-game on set and shined next to Valentina; she wasn’t overshadowed at all. Liberty wasn’t doing much with her face and was doing more or less the same thing; she struggled a bit. Khrystyana was stunning and was totally having a moment with Katya. Kyla was being too soft and was doing nothing with her face. Shanice did “soft” the way that Kyla should have; she was graceful elegance.
There really was no other choice for best photo. Khrystyana killed it and was far and away the best of the bunch this week. I would have called Jeana before Shanice, but that’s neither here nor there because both of them did comparably well.
Fifty Shades Freed is the final film in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy based on the erotic fiction novels written by E.L. James. Written by Niall Leonard and directed by James Foley, the film stars Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan as Anastasia Steele (now Grey) and Christian Grey, who must cut their honeymoon short when Anastasia’s ex-boss Jack Hyde resurfaces to threaten the pair.
Last week’s episode of Scandal made me incredibly excited to see what the rest of the season would hold. This week’s episode left me feeling disappointed, but still quite curious. Perhaps I hyped myself up too much. Perhaps I put too much stock in what I thought was the promise that last week’s episode had made about what the series would look like going forward. Perhaps I had my expectations too high. Either way, the thrilling game of espionage and intrigue, violence and revenge that I wanted to get in seeing Quinn go after Olivia and finally taking her down is not at all what I’ll get. Disappointed though I may be, I don’t hate how things turned out.
The snake in the grass, however, turned out to be Cyrus himself. He was warning Mellie about Jake and he took the very first opportunity he had to betray her and seize power for himself. When Olivia went to him with her silver tongue and her sweet words I was so hoping that he wouldn’t fall for her manipulations. The second that he interrupted Jake and Mellie’s meeting in the Oval and didn’t immediately tell them about Olivia coming to him I knew she’d gotten her hooks into him. Although I gave him the benefit of the doubt of him having done it off screen. I fully expected him to tell Jake and Mellie to surrender to Olivia. That that was how they were going to get out of the whole mess with Vanessa and Robert.
With Olivia fighting to retain her power and position, it was the perfect time for Quinn to get started on that revenge plot of hers. But Papa Pope was having none of that. What looked to be him preaching caution was actually him keeping Quinn from going after Olivia. Here I thought that he was on board with taking down Olivia and was on on Quinn’s side. That the two had bonded over their mutual betrayal by Olivia and he recognised the monster that she had become and that she needed to be dealt with. I get him not wanting Quinn to kill his daughter – which it seems like Quinn was planning to do, I thought she was just going to get her imprisoned or something, not kill her – but still. I thought he was down.
After everything that Olivia did. After everything that QPA, Fitz, Mellie and Jake did. After everything that happened. It was the fact that Quinn hated Olivia that got to her. So when she broke down after Eli took care of her bullet wound, crying over Quinn hating her, it looked like then and only then did she realise how far she’d gone and how much wrong she’d done. She finally accepted responsibility for her actions. It was no surprise then that she actually did resign from her position as Chief of Staff.
This show continues to find ways to demonstrate how absolutely insane Andrew Cunanan was. At least as presented in this show. I don’t know what the man was like in real life; I was five years old when this entire saga happened and I don’t want to look up anything until the show is done because spoilers (I already spoiled the fact that he killed himself and wasn’t caught, which was just disappointing). I spent pretty much the entire episode amazed by – and sometimes in awe of – Andrew’s mentality and the nonchalance with which he just existed, for someone who committed murder.
I was really confused when Andrew killed Jeffrey but didn’t immediately kill David. He was a witness after all. But it very soon became clear that he killed Jeffrey in front of David in order make him dependent on him and manipulate him into a relationship. Or at least not leaving him. The gentle, caring way that he showered David immediately after bludgeoning Jeffrey to death with a hammer, acted so normal for the entirety of the episode and tried to convince David that staying with him and not calling or telling anyone anything was for the best was just creepy. In fact, that last one was perhaps the creepiest.
The police were, once again, very frustrating in this episode. I have very little idea of what American police procedure dictates, but it felt like such a crappy excuse that the police had to leave David’s loft just because he actually wasn’t the body wrapped in the carpet and they didn’t have a warrant. Isn’t a dead body in his loft reason enough for the police to be there without a warrant? Regardless of if it was him or not?
This week’s episode felt a bit like filler in that not that much happened that particularly impacted the overall plot. Not in a very big way. Sure, they showed that The 100 introduced a new drug, brought on Tobias’ sister and now the two of the are working together to kill Black Lightning, but this felt like an episode that crept the plot forward, rather than pushed it. Given how early in the season it is and that it’s a short one at that, a filler episode – or at least one that feels that way is a little strange.
I said previously that it was The 100 that introduced the new drug – Green Light – but I think that this same organisation is responsible for it. The 100, I think is solely involved in terms of its distribution (although we don’t know if Jefferson’s old friend or the two boys Anissa saw selling to her students are in The 100). I feel like that the drug was something that came from higher up in the chain of command than Tobias. Even Gambi and Jefferson think so. Like Jefferson noted, the transportation and storing of the drug was far more sophisticated than what a street gang was capable of.
In her conversation with Tobias earlier in the episode, Lady Eve set him on the task of killing Black Lightning. Tobias’ sister is going to help him achieve that…and part of her plan is to turn Khalil so that he hates Black Lightning first? I’m not too sure where she’s going with that. Or the writers for that matter. I expect that it will reveal itself down the road but right now, how and why Khalil hating Black Lightning will enable them to then kill the man is kind of questionable. I don’t see why they need him for that.
Nothing worth talking about happened in the house this week, so we’re going to skip right to the challenge. This week was all about unconventional beauty and for this week’s challenge the girls had to use unconventional tools for “beauty hack” videos alongside YouTube personality Patrick Starr. From tape to boiled eggs and chicken cutlets and shaving cream to condoms. Yes, condoms. Overall, the girls weren’t particularly creative in what they used their tools for because three out of the five of them used their unconventional beauty tools as beauty blenders. The other two used theirs for contouring and exfoliation.
I was disappointed with Rio’s behaviour this week. I did not expect that kind of conduct from her because she always carried herself with such maturity and like I said last week, she seemed to be the one who always had something encouraging to say to the other girls. This week she attacked someone for something that was out of their control.
I found it interesting that Rio, Coura and Jeana were grouped together since they have the strongest faces, in my opinion. I wish Rio had been put in the middle so that they would have been going from lightest to darkest, but their skin tones were beautiful together. I also liked the match up with Brendi K., Khrystyana and Liberty. They all had different coloured hair which was striking. Christina, Erin and Shanice looked beautiful together, but Christina was ruining it with the smushing. She was weighing down both Erin and Shanice. Pretty as they were, that just threw off everything. Kyla was also on a roll from last week. She once again looked a lot better on set than she had before. So did Sandra. The instruction they got from Ashley really helped.
I would not have called Rio first. Either Brendi K. or Khrystyana, the two of them could have been either first or second. Third and fourth was equally interchangeable between Sandra and Shanice, as was fifth and sixth with Rio and Kyla. All in all, the six girls I would have placed as the top six, were the top six, so it’s all good.