Welcome to our newly revamped Boomb Tube! Here, we will be catching you up on the week in comics TV, both through micro-reviews, as well as links to our full-length TV reviews. We also tend to review series that are dropped all at once weekly, so there are a few ‘older’ shows mixed in for good measure. Are we missing your favorite show? Let us know in the comments!
Batwoman– “We Having Fun Yet?” (S3E13, The CW)
Read Joe’s full review of the Batwoman season finale tomorrow.
Big Nate – “CATastrophe” (S1E4, Paramount+)
All of us have fears, and most of them are, at least in some ways, irrational. Nate is afraid of cats, and that almost blows his big chance at working on a school project with Jenny. Big Nate continues to mix media really well, with some choice Savage Garden music and some actual cat footage mixed in. The class project was to create a Rube Goldberg machine, which just so happens to be one of my son’s Ben’s favorite things, and so he enjoyed the different devices shown. If his class was doing this project, he would want a machine that made rainbows (don’t ask). Amelia said that her machine would bring stuffed animals to her in bed automatically.
The b-plot in this episode led to the big laughs in the Salvatore home, which involved Nate and Ellen’s dad’s crippling fear of public bathrooms. This starts out as a simple gag, but turns into Ellen putting her dad through immersion therapy. The episode ends with Martin (dad) barging into Nate’s classroom to proclaim that he used the school bathroom, and can do it anytime he wants, and then kisses Nate. It’s a very funny and weird moment that was the favorite of all three viewers this week, but especially Brian. – The Salvatores
Legends of Tomorrow – “Knocked Down, Knocked Up” (S7E13, The CW)
Read our full review by Christopher Chiu-Tabet.
Naomi – “Homecoming” (S1E6, The CW)
After last week’s (relatively) pointless side-quest, Naomi refocuses with “Homecoming.” All of the major plot points – Naomi’s crew, her home planet, her parents’ protection skills, Zumbado’s difficulty, Dee’s quest – are hit upon, and yet, the episode doesn’t feel overstuffed. That’s not to say that all of the various plot points are equally important or well handled, but for the most part, this felt like a return to form after last week’s weirdness.
The reluctance of Port Oswego’s teens to talk to adults continues as Anthony and Nathan break in to check school security footage, instead of just going to the administration with their very real concern over who trashed the architecture team’s float. This followed a very weird and borderline problematic conversation where Anthony talks to Nathan about how Port Oswego’s ‘history is being erased.’ Especially as he was saying it to a black dude, this conversation had a pretty serious white nationalist/Proud Boy overtone to it. It is somewhat addressed by the end of the conversation, but boy howdy was that uncomfortable.
The plus of that scene, however, was that it was almost a reverse Bechdel test moment, as it was a scene where two men had a conversation about a woman that seemed like it was there simply to have them talk about her. It was a rare bit of quasi-feminist writing on the show, and I don’t hate it.
But the more important detail of the episode is Naomi’s interaction with Dr. Bell at STAR Labs. This both brings the longtime DC and CW facility into the series, but also continues the trend of Zumbado appearing to be less of a monster than he’s been made out to be. In fact, you may question his methods, but he hasn’t been wrong about anything just yet. He’s the only person, aside from Dee, who seems to be actually doing anything to protect Naomi. His motives may not be crystal clear yet, but he seems like he’s more on the side of the right than any of us may have initially assumed.
Dee’s journey to healing continued this week, where he has seemingly come to terms, for a second time, with his loved one’s death. It still seems like the show is going somewhere unexpected with this, but for now, it allowed the character both some emotional moments and some closure. – Brian Salvatore
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Raising Dion – “Issue #206: 36 Good Hours” (S2E6, Netflix)
Dion escapes Brayden’s clutches by entering his mind instead, and discovers his nemesis’s innocent side – embodied by a younger version who once got locked below a raised deck while playing hide-and-seek with his mom – and frees him. Tevin leads a BIONA team to find the little rascal, but they only find the catatonic couple who drove him to Atlanta at his listed address. Brayden, who’s hiding in a shed, tells the Crooked Man he doesn’t want to hurt anyone anymore, causing the fiend to take over his mind, a loss Dion senses and becomes distraught about.
Nicole is informed she has 36 hours to live, and is given small doses of the antidote to let her enjoy it without transforming into a monster. She proceeds to spend the next morning baking pancakes with her son, helping Esperanza with her performance at the school’s musical revue, and finally having coffee with Tevin, who vows to protect Dion without even needing to be asked. Kat, who wants better for her sister, goes to BIONA with renewed purpose, and works out what’s wrong with Pat’s antidote. Using Powered DNA, they find a way around its side effects, but at the cost of giving everyone superpowers. Suzanne asks Kat to continue working on it, while Pat is escorted back to his cell, unaware he has concealed a serum to restore his abilities.
The possessed Brayden attacks Dion at school, after putting everyone else to sleep. Esperanza’s the only other person unaffected, and she wakes up Jonathan, who helps Dion fight off Brayden with a fire extinguisher (and the power of friendship.) Their victory lap is short lived however, as Tevin comes to take Dion home, after Nicole’s health takes a turn for the worse. Finally learning what’s happening, Dion tries to heal his mom, but it physically hurts her, and he’s forced to stop. Poor boy: I know he had to deal with his father’s death when he was younger, but can you imagine learning your mother is going to die at such short notice? – Christopher Chiu-Tabet
Resident Alien – “An Alien in New York” (S2E6, Syfy)
Read our full review by Christopher Chiu-Tabet.
Snowpiercer “Born to Bleed” (S4E6, TNT)
“Born to Bleed” may have been the best episode of Snowpiercer in its’ three seasons, the final confrontation between competing ideologies that ends in a duel to the death.
What’s surprising is that I expected at the beginning of this season for that confrontation to be between Layton and Wilford but, instead, it’s between Layton and Pike. The two Tailies had often been at odds, even at the beginning. Pike was the idealist, the one who saw things in black and white while Layton has been the realist, willing to make compromises to ultimately achieve his ends. It’s Layton who sacrificed not just the security forces but prisoners he couldn’t free for the rebellion’s sake. It’s Layton who ordered Pike to murder to eliminate a problem. And it’s Layton who’s been lying about New Eden to maintain control of the train.
Finally, Pike snapped, unable to live with the idea of life beyond anything but the train and disgusted with the compromises. Even his love (adoration?) for Ruth worked against him, as she has bought into Layton’s plan. It’s a measure of Steven Ogg’s performance that I could feel his frustration and hopelessness, despite the face that Pike is likely wrong. Layton made tough decisions that ultimately freed the Tailies and gave all the train’s passengers a chance to survive. The final blow was uncovering Layton’s deception about New Eden. All this leads to a duel to the death with knives, an old Tailie tradition. Layton only agrees to fight when Pike threatens to reveal the truth about the deception. Layton wins, Pike dies, and Layton is left with guilt and an uncertain future, as his concussion seems to have led to a collapse. Everything about the future rests on whether Layton’s vision about New Eden comes true.
Meanwhile, Wilford seems lost in his own mind, leaving Audrey at a loss as well. Without her manipulator/lover, who is she? Roche, however, finally finds his way back from grief with the help of Till and his daughter, while Alex makes a friend her own age again. There’s even the reappearance of Miles! He and his mother Josie meet and talk about the last few months, while his absence is handwaved as “his apprenticeship continues under Big Alice” when the trains were separated. I’m fine with that. It’s good to see the reunion between mother and son.
Continued belowBut my heart breaks for Ruth. She found a kindred spirit in Pike or so she thought. But she couldn’t reach him, and now he’s gone. – Corrina Lawson
Super Crooks – “The Bastard” (S1E12, Netflix)
This is the final heist and the penultimate episode of Super Crooks, and true to form, our villains don’t have a set plan. They’ve infiltrated The Bastard’s island fortress and then just figure out what they’re doing as they go. Which, okay, I could respect that a lot more if I hadn’t just watched 11 episodes of these characters doing the same thing for lower stakes. At some point, you get tired of watching characters figure out a dumb plan on the fly and then being surprised when it fails.
Part one of this episode is Kasey’s bit, where she gets the schematics from the mind of a sleazeball who can’t stop looking at her boobs and butt. She calls out his behavior, but then the camera just keeps panning over her in a skeezy way, which is basically just having your cheesecake while calling out how slimy it is. Acknowledging that a thing is sexist doesn’t excuse you from doing the thing! Once Kasey has the plans of the island, the gang figures out how to disable the superhero blockers and sensors, two aspects of the plot that have been completely handwaved away. How these things work is never explored, only conveniently brought up and discarded when the plot calls for it.
Things look like they’re not going to work for the group of villains, and then they turn around. That’s how these stories go, and although it’s predictable as heck, I must have been Stockholm Syndromed into caring in some small way about the minor characters like Ghost, Gladiator, and the dumb indestructible brothers because I actually watched their parts instead of scrolling through the news on my phone. But, predictably, since this is a show with only one female character, she was caught by the big bads to be presumably used as bait in the showdown in the final episode. This show is sometimes very aware of the tropes it’s employing, even when it handles them clumsily, so we shall see if this Kasey really is in danger or if this is just a bridge to the next episode, where the heist is finally pulled off. – Mel Lake
Superman and Lois – “Tried and True” (S2E6, The CW)
Read our full review by august (in the wake of) dawn.
The Walking Dead – “New Haunts” (S11E9, AMC)
Read our full review by Christopher Cole.
