Welcome back to 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!
Avatar: The Last Airbender – “Legends” (S1E8, Netflix)
Read our full review by Ramon Piña.
Invincible – “I Thought You Were Stronger” (S2E8, Amazon Prime)
In cast you missed it, read our full review of the season 2 finale by James Dowling.
Star Trek: Discovery – “Jinaal” (S5E3, Paramount+)
The chase is on as as the Discovery heads to Trill to get the next clue before Moll and L’ak. We get a B and C story as well. More Federation politics entwine with personal feelings and situations as Planets vying for new starbases create arguments over which stretch of space is deemed more worthy. As voting commences, Saru looks to announce his engagement to T’Rina, causing possible poor optics on these new political movements. Also, this is the second mention of The Breen in two episodes. I better see some Breen this season!
Someone else causing poor optics is Cap…er…Commander Rayner. As Tilly sets up one-on-one appointments for Rayner to meet with the crew, he wants to remain focused on searching through every detail on Moll & L’ak. He allots a few minutes to each crew member, and while he does take in key details about each, allowing him to assess them, including rattling off some of their strengths to Tilly, she throws it in his face that he’s being cold and calculated rather than connecting with his new crew. While a bit of that may be true, not everyone in this future needs to be insufferably sweet and over-emotional. Let him be who he is. It’s one of the things about this show that can be quite tiring, even for someone who can be overly in touch with his emotions.
A bit of a subsect of the A story is Adira and Gray’s reconnection after six months. Things don’t look good from outside as the two have moved on with their professional lives while being lightyears apart for so long. Neither is at fault, but they both are a bit naive when it comes to thinking things can just go back to normal when neither has put in the work to make it so. Young, doomed love. I am kind of happy this relationship seems to be over. It’s not that I dislike these characters and the representation they cover is incredibly important, but there is so little to these two, other than smiling at each other or crying. They deserve so much more to do in Trek.
The main plot this week is Michael, Book, and Culber heading to chat with the Guardians of Trill to answer riddles and find the next piece of the puzzle. The Guardians put the essence of a past Trill named Jinaal into Culber to show Michael and Book the way to the next clue. These are the most action packed and even-keeled emotionally sections of the episode. Fun while maintaining the intrigue of the core mystery. There’s a lot to love here, especially for long time fans who watched Deep Space Nine. Plenty of callbacks and nods.
There’s a lot to like with this episode, but it was my least favorite of the season so far as it began to lean on old habits that don’t really work.
This is an episode that deals in relationships and the past and future. – Christopher Egan
Star Wars: The Bad Batch – “Juggernaut” (S3E12, Disney+)
“Juggernaut” is an example of the ‘good’ Bad Batch and the ‘bad’ Bad Batch all at once. On the good side, we get some interesting scenes between Omega and Dr. Karr, as well as a return from Rampart as a reluctant and unlikely ally. Both of those, in broad strokes, were really effective parts of the episode. The Omega stuff remains the show’s heart, and allows the series to feel like something a little more three-dimensional, emotionally, than the average stories focused on Hunter, Wrecker and Crosshair tend to be.
Continued belowBut the lead up to the Rampart stuff and the execution of his abduction features some of the worst tendencies of this series, which is to tell us, then show us, all the action. I’m not sure if there are still remnants of writing this like a children’s show or not, but very few things are ever left as subtle or even as something that is stated just once. But the show doesn’t go all in on a recap of who Rampart is, which I could understand the utility of, but instead they expect the audience to remember a bad guy from a few season ago but not remember the escape plan from five minutes earlier.
This leads to an episode that, technically, moves the plot forward a bunch, but doesn’t really feel like it in the moment: the clones have their best bet to find Omega, Omega meets the Force sensitive kids, Phee Genoa returns, we get a better sense of what Dr. Karr is thinking. But the execution is still off and, with just three episodes left in the series, the pace could really use some adjustment. – Brian Salvatore
X-Men ‘97 – “Remember It” (S1E5, Disney+)
This devastating turn begins with Magneto, Rogue and Gambit flying to Genosha, which is being formally admitted to the UN. The country is thriving, and we reunite with a lot of old faces, from Nightcrawler (voiced again by Adrian Hough) and Madelyne, to the Hellfire Club and the Morlocks, and many more. There’s a definite feeling of a new Wakanda to Genosha, which is appropriate given the country’s nature as a reflection of South Africa. Erik is unsure about being appointed the country’s leader, but is willing to accept if Rogue will be his queen. While mulling it over, Rogue confesses her history with Erik in the Savage Land to Gambit, leaving him disappointed and resigned to how he’ll apparently always be her second choice. Ironically, in spite of an extremely romantic display at the gala, Rogue realizes she doesn’t really feel that way about Erik; alas, it winds up becoming too late.
Things are going awkwardly at the mansion too, with Scott and Jean still distant from each other. Scott loses his temper at a crew making a documentary about the team after they ask about Nathan’s disappearance, while Jean kisses Logan on the mouth after he checks in on her while she meditates. It goes from bad to worse when Jean discovers Scott is still in psychic contact with Madelyne, leaving her feeling betrayed (something that greatly amuses the nosy Emma Frost.) It’s certainly an interesting spin on Scott’s infidelity in the comics, but in any case, both Greys are soon distracted, as they experience premonitions of something terrible coming. Cable tries to warn everyone at Genosha, but is too late, and returns to the future, though bittersweetly, not before finally reuniting with his mother.
This terror is none other than the Tri-Sentinel, that also carried out a genocide on Genosha at the start of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s “New X-Men” run. Madelyne, Banshee, and many more are killed in the initial wave of the onslaught (no pun intended), and Magneto eventually falls to the giant robot, though not before telling Leech to not be afraid as they both die. (The decision to have him say that in his mother tongue was poignant, though I can’t imagine if poor Leech understood, which makes it all the more sadder really.) Gambit prevents Rogue from recklessly throwing her life away, and manages to destroy the Tri-Sentinel, though at the cost of his life. Whatever happens next (because I’ve seen a lot of speculation as to how Erik and the Morlocks could’ve survived), two things are for sure: this was such a bleak episode, and God bless Gambit. – Christopher Chiu-Tabet
