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!
The Flash – “Lockdown” (S8E7, The CW)
The Flash is really bad at keeping his identity secret.
As he have been seeing this season, Barry Allen has leveled up, now he and Team Flash are more effective at being heroes, but there’s always room for improvement, for example, when he caught a criminal, he used to simply drop them off at CCPD, but now that Kramer is the captain, things must change, either he learns to trust her, or they develop a better way to know what the crime of every criminal is, something like a “Flash Phone.”
After Joe vouched for Kramer, Barry chooses to do extra work as CSI to help dealing with criminals, but suddenly the precinct is attacked by Goldface, and this is something I love about this show, they know it is goofy and they embrace it, only here a criminal idea so dumb, like assaulting a precinct, can be done effectively.
I think this is something that showrunner Eric Wallace has been very aware of, have fun with the Flash, the whole team seems to be enjoying themselves and the guest actors follow suit, the stars of this episode were the criminals Goldface and Carver, who both manage to look menacing but also dumb enough to, you know, break into the police itself.
We also had two subplots about the new relationships within team Flash, Chester and Allegra are slowly realizing they feel something for each other, and Caitlin had a date with Marcus that accidentally turned into a double date with Frost and Chillblaine. Caitlin acted like an asshole to everybody and ruined the date, and Mark, yes, the criminal boyfriend of her “sister,” encourages her to instead on dunking on their relationship, she should focus on her own.
Coming back to the main plot, Barry and Kramer team up and together they defeated Goldface and Barry realizes that Kramer wants to keep in touch with the Flash not only because he is a hero and she is the captain, but because she needs someone to train her on her meta-abilities. At the end, Barry welcomes her (unofficially) to Team Flash by revealing his identity although Kramer deduced it earlier. As I said, Barry is bad at keeping his identity secret. – Ramon Piña
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe – “The World Above” (S2E1, Netflix)
Read our full review of the season premiere by Henry Finn tomorrow.
Raising Dion – “Issue #208: Who You Are (S2E8, Netflix)
Read our full review of the season finale by Christopher Chiu-Tabet on Tuesday.
Resident Alien – “Alien Dinner Party” (S2E8, Syfy)
Read our full review by Christopher Chiu-Tabet.
Snowpiercer – “Setting Things Right” (S3E8, TNT)
It’s never a good idea to listen to Wilford. But it’s beginning to look like it’s not a good idea to listen to Layton either.
I was frustrated last season when the writing of the show leaned so heavily into Wilford’s villainy and Layton’s seeming inability to combat it. This season, Layton has had the spotlight, even sliding further into the morally gray with his lie about New Eden, inadvertent as it was.
But now it looks like Layton might become a complete failure and Wilford is on the ascendence again, which I find frustrating. In “Settings Things Right,” Layton decided that following the faint hope of Melanie was better than continuing to New Eden, at least temporarily. But that sent the train went through a toxic soup of air that infected the train’s precious food supply. Layton and Asha sprung into action to save it. It cost one of them their life.
I’d wanted more of a spotlight on Archie Panjabi’s Asha. This episode provided that, with a focus not only on who she was but what she wanted to become. In the end, she sacrifices herself to save the train, her chosen redemption for poisoning others to save her family members, who died anyway.
Continued belowI hated to see Asha go but this was a fine sendoff.
Meanwhile, Alex has made a friend, finally, and one hopes for brighter days ahead for her. Till and Audrey also seem to have connected again, though it’s unclear if their intimacy is only emotional or will become something more. Certainly Till needed some comfort after the events of the season. She’ll be all right, though Audrey’s future is uncertain, given her obsession with Wilford.
In the meantime, the show once again teases us with Melanie’s return. At this point, if she isn’t alive, it’s going to be a crushing disappointment. –Corrina Lawson
Star Trek: Picard – “Penance” (S2E2, Paramount+)
Read our full review by Christopher Chiu-Tabet.
Star Trek: Picard – “Assimilation” (S2E3, Paramount+)
The Borg Queen manages to connect herself to La Sirena and transport the ship back in time to 2024, but at the cost of draining its power, and forcing it to crash-land where Picard’s family will one day build their vineyard. Unfortunately, there’s not enough power to keep the Queen and the wounded Elnor alive, and Picard is forced to sacrifice his surrogate son for the knowledge she has of the temporal divergence. It was a horrible choice to make, and I don’t blame Raffi for being upset; sure, Elnor will be resurrected if they succeed, but he’d essentially be a back-up version, and not the one who died in her arms.
Despite Picard’s concerns, Jurati has herself connected to the unconscious Queen to wake her up, as – having not been assimilated before – she would have the most resistance to her mind. After a tense scene where Jurati and the Queen speak from each others’ bodies, Jean-Luc severs the connection, and learns Jurati managed to recover the coordinates to “the Watcher” at the center of the divergence in history. Worryingly, the Queen replies that Jurati has impressed her.
Raffi, Seven and Rios transport to Los Angeles, although Rios arrives in mid-air, and winds up being taken to a clinic; there, he meets the noble doctor Teresa (Sol Rodriguez), and her son Ricardo (Steve Guttierez). So far, so Voyage Home, but their adventures also see them come face-to-face with 21st century issues like crime, poverty, homelessness, paying for healthcare, and immigration enforcement; Teresa primarily helps undocumented, poor migrants, and Rios winds up foolishly getting himself arrested when the pigs come knocking. Well, you know what they say about guys in love… – Christopher Chiu-Tabet
The Walking Dead – “The Lucky Ones” (S11E12, AMC)
Read our full review by Christopher Cole.
