Category: Recaps

DC Comics, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps Arrow: Demolition Team

Constance Gibbs

On this week’s Arrow, Oliver gets justification for his lies and it still starts to blow up in his face: there’s a debate, an engagement party, and lots of buildings blow up. The episode is full of Darhk’s demolition team, but I actually use it to refer to all the people in this episode co-signing Oliver’s lies, which will clearly hurt him with Felicity, but also with William and who knows how it will play out with Samantha and Darhk’s larger plans. They’re laying down the explosives. It’s all gonna blow soon.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Earth-2, Frozen Boogaloo

Christelle G.

All the Barry Allens. All the Iris Wests. All the Caitlin Snows. All the Jay Garricks?

I’d laugh that Zoom is doing the CW voiceover for this episode if he weren’t, um you know, scary as hell. Zoom takes Banksy-ing a city to a whole other level:

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NOC Recaps Supergirl: Playing Catch Up

Keith Chow

One of the problems with having so many television options is that if you fall behind, the shows can start to pile up. Unfortunately, I fell behind recapping Supergirl, so in order to catch up in time for Lexi Alexander’s directorial debut in National City tonight, I made sure I plowed through the last two episodes and will be covering both today.

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NOC Recaps Arrow: Naive Notions

Constance Gibbs

Nearly everyone in this episode suffers from naive notions that they really should be over by now. Oliver naively believes that Malcolm would surrender his power. Felicity naively believes (though thankfully only for a moment) that her returned father has changed. Nyssa believes that Oliver would kill Malcolm for her, after all she knows Malcolm has done to Oliver personally. Malcolm believes that power is more important than Thea. Even Flashback Chick thinks that giving her jailer the stone will make him set her free. Silly rabbits, Trix are for kids.

But I’m gonna focus this quickie review on the two women driving the forces of the A and B story. Nyssa and Thea.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Doppel-drama

Christelle G.

Earth Freaking Two.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps Arrow: Welcome Back, Harper

Constance Gibbs

Another Oliver-light episode, “Unchained,” focuses on Felicity, Nyssa, and ROY’S RETURN! It was wonderful how much light Roy brought back to the group. He had Oliver smiling and everyone happily working together as a team.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps The Flash: From Whole Speed Force to 2%

Constance Gibbs

ConStar here standing in for Christelle, but neither of us are running fast enough…! WHO STOLE OUR SPEED?

I realize I’m getting my milk/speed force analogies mixed up for the 2% pun, but let me live. I only just learned that whole milk is only 3.5% milk anyway.

Episode 2×12 of The Flash, “Fast Lane,” features two characters slowing down: Barry and Wally. Both of their speed problems converge upon Iris, is this a sign of things to come for poor Iris West? There’s a monster of the week, but it’s not all that interesting, so we’ll be zipping by mentions of it.

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NOC Recaps Arrow: A.W.O.L. Stands for Amanda Waller

Constance Gibbs

From Felicity’s back and forth with pain meds to the Diggle’s being featured up front, Episode 4.11, “A.W.O.L.” gave its secondary leads lots of screen time. It was one of the season’s strongest episodes on that front, because fans always want more of Diggle and Felicity, and less of Oliver (and the darn island). We did, however, see how the DC Cinematic Universe could be ruining things for their TV properties. Let’s dive in real quick.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: Origin Story in Reverse

Keith Chow

Like the return of Harrison Wells earlier in the season, the latest episode of The Flash found an interesting way bring back last season’s main baddie: The Reverse Flash! Unlike Wells-2, this isn’t an alternative universe version of Eobard Thawne. Instead, the Thawne we meet in “The Reverse Flash Returns” is actually one from a timeline different from last season’s Reverse-Wells. Yeah, it’s kind of confusing.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television4 Comments

NOC Recaps Supergirl: Mars Attacks!

Keith Chow

So I’ve been out for a few weeks and am still catching up on all the TV I missed, but I wanted to get this Supergirl recap out ahead of tonight’s all new episode. This won’t be a full on recap, however. Basically just a series of OMG gifs because I’m still reeling from the fact that we actually have a live action Martian Manhunter show on television, you guys! Also shout out to Connie for holding down the recap fort on Supes last week!

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NOC Recaps The Flash: DTR (Define-The-Relationship)

Christelle G.

“Potential Energy,” the title of 2016’s first episode, is pure nerd genius. This episode explores the coulda-shoulda- woulda potential of fresh relationships between our favorite characters and some of the show’s newcomers: Barry + Patty Spivot, Joe + Wally West, and Caitlin + Jay Garrick. By the shock-factor end tag (don’t miss it!), one pairing aggressively commits to eachother, one pairing takes the first tentative steps towards building a stronger connection, and one pairing dissolves in a pile of angst. Keep reading to figure out the fate of each duo.

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DC Comics, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps Arrow: Descent into Anarky

Constance Gibbs

We’ve returned from Arrow hiatus to something very familiar. Remember how the cliffhanger had a lead of the show potentially dying in the 9th episode of the season and then they survived in episode 10? And episode 10 deals with the characters figuring out if they can cope without the not-dead character? Felicity’s absence is shorter lived than Oliver’s, but the stakes still feel as false as they did when Oliver “died.” 

I love how the show didn’t even pretend Felicity was dead (unlike every promo until this week). Well, they had that grave shot, but marked it very clearly as 4 months from now. Why would this bullet have killed her four months from now with a fresh grave? Anyway, I hope that’s the last midseason finale with a fake death, because I’m over it. On to episode 4×10, “Blood Debts.”

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NOC Recaps Supergirl: Toy Man and The Boy Toy

Constance Gibbs

Hi Guys! Supreme Chief Keith is out for the week, so I’m covering Supergirl! After I watched this week’s episode, I was glad I was recapping this one and not last week’s, which kinda bored me. This week was better and included some great acting, but some of the writing left me wanting… Let’s dive in!

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NOC Recaps Supergirl: Blood is Thicker Than Kryptonite

Keith Chow

Am I the only one who thinks Supergirl came back sooner than expected? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that one of my favorite shows is back on the air, but since the other DC shows — namely Flash, Arrow, and Legends — don’t return until the week of January 19 I assumed Supergirl would be joining them then. Also doesn’t help that there isn’t a new episode next week either. Still, Supergirl is back — for this week, at least — and they pick up right where they left off before Christmas.

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Martial Arts, Recaps, Television2 Comments

NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Bloody Barons

Keith Chow

After last week’s episode ramped up the stakes for our heroes, we headed into the first season finale with a lot of questions that needed answers. Who poisoned Jade? Will Quinn take advantage of M.K.’s gifts? Will Sunny turn on his young apprentice to secure passage on the River King’s ship? Did the Widow survive her duel with Sunny? Will Veil blame Sunny for the death of her parents? Will the show come back for a second season? And why are there only six episodes for the season?

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NOC Recaps Supergirl: Family Matters

Keith Chow

Still playing catch up on our recaps, but I didn’t want to go into the holiday break without talking about what was easily the best episode of Supergirl to date. And that’s saying a lot considering how much I enjoyed the last episode. But the mid-season finale — called “Hostile Takeover” — took things to a whole new level and I can’t wait to see what they have in store once 2016 rolls around! Not to mention the fact that NOC-favorite Lexi Alexander will be helming an ep in the new year.

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NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: The Butterfly Effect

Keith Chow

Continuing our recap catch up, the penultimate episode of Into the Badlands was clearly the most interesting of the season. And that’s too bad because after this weekend’s season finale, we don’t know if AMC will be bringing the show back for a second one. We hope so since all the pieces are finally in place for an epic showdown between good, evil, and everything in between.

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NOC Recaps Arrow: Sinking ‘Ships

Keith Chow

Because this recap is a week late (sorry, got distracted writing on twitter about a different rich, blonde, white guy who learns the ways of the Orient and returns a superhero) and because I’m just filling in, my recap of the Arrow winter finale, titled “Dark Waters,” will follow a different format. Rather than just giving a play-by-play of what happened in the ep, I wanna spend extra time on two aspects of the show and its fandom that needs to be discussed. And of course we will talk about that ending.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: The Rogues Awaken

Christelle G.

The CW pulled out the big guns for The Flash’s second mid-season finale: Mark Hamill’s return as the Trickster, Captain Cold, and… Wally West? Yes. Wally Freaking Kid Flash West is in this episode, and he’s beautiful. I mean, it’s beautiful. Yeah. That’s what I meant. Anyways, happy holidays and speed onward to read onward!

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NOC Recaps Supergirl: My Favorite Martian

Keith Chow

Full disclosure: I wasn’t really looking forward to last night’s Supergirl. After the big cliffhanger in last week’s excellent entry into the season — in which Kara cuts herself on a piece of glass, demonstrating her loss of powers — I was disappointed the show was already going the no powers route so soon. This trope gets explored in nearly every iteration of the Superman/Supergirl story. But boy was I wrong! “Human For a Day” might be my favorite episode so far!

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NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Warriors vs. Clippers

Keith Chow

Last night’s Into the Badlands — clunkily titled “Two Tigers Subdue Dragons” and not to be confused with this — was tasked with propelling us into the end of the season. In addition to a promised Baron v Baron showdown, the episode was the first to effectively use an episode-ending cliffhanger to guarantee viewers will tune in for the final two entries of its debut season. But did it deliver?

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NOC Recaps Arrow: Hubris, Not Hope

Constance Gibbs

As we know, Team Flarrow is trying to protect the Hawks from Vandal Savage, who wants to murder them because of destiny or habit or something. So everyone’s all teamed up, Kendra’s unlocked her hawking powers, and Oliver’s spotted his baby mama!

I’ve been so cautious this season, guys. Good things were happening. Oliver was LEARNING LESSONS. TEAM FLARROW WAS AWESOME. Despite some plot/exposition bumps, the team up in this half of the crossover was fun. There were things I wished for: Less Carter. ANY Snowlicity aside from their one nerd moment. Less white ancient Egypt (I’ll get on some of that later). But the Barry/Oliver moments were great — they’re wonderful foils for each other. As was anything with Cisco. Can he be my friend? Also he should be in every show. But just like we were burned last season with the Ra’s al Ghul arc, this Kid arc (I’ll come up with a better name for it another time) is only going to lead to terrible things. Unhappy fans. Annoyed fans.

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NOC Recaps The Flash: It’s Getting Hawk in Here

Christelle G.

Other title options: Ready to Hawk and Roll, Hawked and Loaded, Hawk of Ages, We Will Hawk You, Too Hawk Hawk Damn, and Drop It like It’s Hawk1.

Before we begin… does Hawkgirl “claim” to be white? Uh oh, this is hawkward… but it wouldn’t be too surprising. (See Sandra Hawke, Sin, and Ra’s Al Ghul). I personally went through Kendra Saunders’ twitter history to read her tweets and reactions and responses to identifying as white. I urge others to do the same and form an opinion after seeing both sides.

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