DC TV Weekly #22

Supergirl 'City of Lost Children' Review
And here I was ready to do another rant about how James is a useless character. But in a shocking turn of events, he actually does something useful. As Guardian, there is very little that James can do to be useful, in fact the episode started off with him throwing a self-pity party for not being as useful as Supergirl (Well duh!). However, half way through his perspective suddenly shifts, instead of trying to fight random bad guys, he talks to people, shows empathy and through that is actually able to help people. Honestly, if he's so envious of the Super family, this is the first step to improving yourself to be more like them. Because Superman and Supergirl don't inspire because of their powers, but because of their words, for their compassion and humility. None of which are things James has been doing until this episode. He was always the vigilante, thinks he knows best and works outside of the law. Here, he talks things out, compromises, works with the DEO instead of in spite of them. Oh yeah, and Mon-El was here and not annoying. It's almost as if he's a tolerable character when he's not forced into terrible romantic subplots where it's obvious Kara has much more healthy options in certain L-Corp CEOs (They're not even being subtle about it). Still, for an episode to actually give James a purpose is enough on it's own to give this episode a 7/10.

The Flash 'Cause and Effect' Review
Filler episode? Humour? Character development? Nerdy references? Oh my god it's a good episode of The Flash! I'm not sure if I consider it a good thing or a bad thing that I prefer the filler episodes over the plot, maybe it just shows how bad the main story is. Barry losing his memory and getting to be happy is actually an interesting idea, especially when one of the main draws for superheroes is that they all experience tragedy but power through it. Barry can't really be The Flash unless he has that pain, and he does what a superhero should do, overcome it, do the right thing and keep fighting no matter how much weight keeps getting piled on. This is the Barry Allen that I love, not the one who runs away from his problems or seeks revenge or acts selfishly to make himself feel better. He grieves, he adapts, he accepts it. Also apparently this Barry Allen is a huge Dragon Ball Z fan, so if anything this show has given me a new reason to love him. Even the B-Plot of Killer Frost having to help them and Cisco uses this opportunity to try and remind her of their time together. A nice parallel, Barry can't become The Flash without painful memories, and Killer Frost can't become Caitlin without happy memories. Even the humour was on point in this episode, Wally saying he's Barry's brother and Barry quickly just looks at his skin was a funny little moment. My only issue is HR's C-Plot felt so detached from everything else it felt more like he was in a different building instead of just down the hall. Also a nitpick is the fact that like Zoom last year, Savitar is just seemingly sat around doing nothing (Yes he's technically lost his memory, but even before then he wasn't doing much). Overall it was a fun-if slightly inconsequential-episode and it's been a while since I can say that I've enjoyed this show. 7/10

Arrow 'Honour Thy Fathers' Review
It feels like every season ends with "Oliver, you have to put [Insert aspect of Oliver's mopey personality here] behind you" and he never actually does, but this one kinda feels definite, for nothing else they've run out of flashbacks for Oliver so the show kind of has to mix things up. Like with Flash there's some nice thematic parallels between the heroes and the villains this season, except unlike Flash, this show doesn't have to resort to compromising the main character's personality. Which is odd, you'd think of all the shows that might be able to get away with that Arrow would be the one. Instead we have two characters fighting in the memory of their fathers, despite both being corrupted men. The difference being while Oliver's father was a bad man, Oliver accepted this and as he puts it "My father never gave up on me" something that Chase doesn't have. Though it is a little convenient he just believes Oliver and gave up kind of easily. Also what happened with Rene at the end? They didn't explain why he never showed up to the hearing when his prior scene in this subplot left him in a pretty strong place. Not entirely sure where there is left to go with two episodes left, there are certainly loose ends, but I wouldn't have expected them to be strong enough to hold two episodes, they seemed more like B-Plots. Regardless of next week, this weeks episode proved to be a solid one, major plot progression, good acting, everything tied in together. 7/10.

-Danny