Television 

Boomb Tube: The Week of Comic Book Television, 6/12/22 – 6/18/22

By | June 20th, 2022
Posted in Television | % Comments

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!

And since the summer is here, check out our 2022 Summer TV binges, where Multiversity staffers reach back in time to review comics/comics-adjacent/nerdy shows all summer long. (Here’s a handy list of what’s being covered too.)

The Boys – “Barbary Coast” (S3E3, Amazon Prime)

Read our full review by Ramon Piña.

The Flash – “The Man in the Yellow Tie” (S8E18, The CW)

Through the years, I have been talking about how the show should already have a final season, to avoid a decline in quality and have a special ending. And now that time has come.

One of the main criticisms of Eric Wallace’s work has been the “graphic novel” format of the show, but I actually enjoy it a lot, every few episodes we have a new villain from Flash’s vast 80-year-old Rogues Gallery. It is a good change of pace for the series.

I even enjoy the new characters that became series regulars after Cisco and Wells left. I really like seeing Chester and Alegra and Cecile grow. But what I don’t like is the constant irregularity of other characters, I get that Danielle Panabaker is on maternity leave, but Candice Patton, Barry’s wife, has been pretty much absent from season 7 and 8, with her own storyline separate from the rest of the cast. It has been rumored for years that she doesn’t want to be on the show anymore and it shows.

Then, we have the problem that even with a new villain every graphic novel, they end up using Thawne again and again. If I remember well, he was used in Season 5, Season 7 and now this eighth season, thrice! At the beginning of the season, on this season finale and even we have an “original Thawne” with memory loss that is a good person… seriously, don’t we have any other villain to tackle? It’s tiring.

And then, there’s the Diggle storyline. Ever since Arrow ended, we have been seeing John Diggle in every other Arrowverse show, as we all speculated, he was destined to be this universe’s Green Lantern and we all loved it, and we finally had the conclusion in this episode, helped by Thawne (why him?) he finally opened the box and began seeing galaxies, his destiny fulfilled… but he rejects it and throws the box, which disappeared at the moment, much to the annoyance of Thawne. So, what they were teasing us for two years on many different shows ended up being… nothing!

The rest of the episode was fine, I like the new character Meena Dhawan, even tough we already have a ton of speedsters, I always enjoy those kind of stories where there’s a teacher and a rookie, and the idea of the subconscious of Thawne creating a machine that takes energy from the negative speed force and its consequences it’s interesting, let’s see how the season ends.

It is expected that the ninth season will be shorter and the last, I hope that they pull off a great finale for what ultimately is a great show that I still love despite it’s flaws. – Ramon Piña

Ms. Marvel – “Crushed” (S1E2, Disney+)

Read our full review by Christopher Chiu-Tabet.

Obi-Wan Kenobi – “Part V” (S1E5, Disney+)

Read our full review by Brian Salvatore.

Riverdale – “Chapter 112: American Psychos” (S6E17, The CW)

Read our full review by Elias Rosner.

Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles – “Go” (S1E8, NETFLIX)

Equal parts frustrating and welcomed, “Go” has left me the most conflicted of all the episodes so far. Some parts were what I wanted, some parts weren’t, and others weren’t desired but were welcomed. The pacing issues are still as awful as ever as we have the “hero is disheartened,” “the hero trains,” “the evil villain ‘wins,’” AND a brand new “monster of the week” that’s entirely unrelated to the rest – all in one episode. It’s overstuffed with individual bits being enjoyable and the whole a mess that leaves me wishing for the focus a Kagehito path of destruction will bring to the show.

Continued below

Broad strokes of the episode are: Chikabuma warns the crew sans Yuichi of Kagehito’s plan, Yuichi is sad because his ancestor did kill the Shogun so he goes home to his Auntie’s farm, hijinks ensue as everyone misses each other, turns out Giman was Karasu Tengu the whole time, they have a training montage, then the episode ends as everyone heads back to Neo Edo and Kagehito blasts Tetsujin with watered down The Ooze. Oh and O-Dokuro, the skeleton Yokai bumbles around and fights the crew at Auntie’s in order to avoid being found and sent back to the ki-stone.

What frustrates me the most is that the only reason Yuichi leaves so the crew is split is because he stops mid-vision. Oh, yeah, the vision didn’t need yokai to activate and this brings into question why the ki-stone, a sentient rock, didn’t do the full info dump at the start. It begs Yuichi to finish the vision here even! It shows the writers’ hands in a bad way as it creates artificial drama and is clearly a tool rather than an outgrowth of the character and the world.

I did have fun with O-Dokuro, even if his presence was entirely superfluous and an excuse to have ANOTHER pointless fight, thanks in no small part to Sungwon Cho’s voicing. I also didn’t hate the twist with Giman; it feels very natural for a story like this to have a sensei mess with their student/potential student. However, it’s just like the ki-stone visions: a reminder of the pointlessness of the quests and the lack of focus the season has had.

The training montage was nice though! Except when Yuichi whined and was his usual insufferable self. Still, he had some growth and that’s more than I can say for any other character this episode. Maybe Chikabuma had some? I’ll count his realization that he was partnered with the baddies towards it. Spot learned that sprites taste terrible so that makes three. That’s a win in my book!

Only two episodes remain. Will they be enough to turn my opinion around? Unless Bargain Bunji and Lord Kogane (re)appear, I highly doubt it. Ikuzo! – Elias Rosner

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – “The Serene Squall” (S1E7, Paramount+)

This is probably the most layered episode of the season, but not always in the best way. Spock’s continuing thread of figuring out his identity, his emotions, his relationship with T’pring and his friendship with Nurse Chapel. It’s a lot to mull over, even though Spock and T’pring’s relationship, and all aspects of it, end up getting tied to the main dilemma of the story.

During a dangerous humanitarian mission, the Enterprise becomes trapped by a deadly pirate crew. The pirates board the Enterprise and use their own ship, the Serene Squall, to entrap our heroes. It’s a fun adventure as Spock and Chapel separately (and together) try to take back the ship as Pike leads the trapped boarding crew in their own scheme amongst the pirates. In the cheesiest of “Star Trek” traditions, the main villains really ham it up this week. It’s a lot of fun and the onslaught of twists and reveals throughout was definitely welcome to “spice things up.”

Silly and exciting all around, this episode also boasts quite a few Spock-centric details that play a hand in what we know is to come in canon, and fleshes out things we are only learning now.

It is absolutely still a strong episode overall, but it’s the first of this series that I haven’t been immediately compelled to rewatch as soon as it’s over. It’s simply a hair too much story for the episode length. Even if it ends up being the weakest entry this season, it is still a winning adventure and I’ll admit once again, the ending gave this life-long Trekkie some chills. – Christopher Egan

Stranger Things – “Dear Billy” (S4E4, Netflix)

Read our full review by Christopher Chiu-Tabet.


//TAGS | Boomb Tube | Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles | Star Trek Strange New Worlds | The Flash

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