‘Powerless’: ‘Wayne Dream Team’ Review

The Wayne Securities team is back in the second episode of NBC’s Powerless, entitled “Wayne Dream Team,”

Emily (Vanessa Hudgens) may have saved everyone’s job in last week’s series premiere, but she’s still haven’t a tough time fitting in. Trying to be both a boss and a friend to her team even though Jackie (Christina Kirk) insists it can’t be done, Emily is struggling with both. Her struggle comes at an unfortunate time, as the team is supposed to be working on a big project with a rapidly approaching deadline, but they’re getting distracted with a Superhero Fantasy League. When she tries to get them back to work without jeopardizing their possible friendship, it all blows up in her face.

Meanwhile, Van Wayne (Alan Tudyk) is desperately trying to find a way to make it into the corporate Wayne Dream Team photograph.

There’s a lot to talk about in this week’s episode of Powerless, so hit the next button below to follow along as we break down the highlights and critical moments of “Wayne Dream Team.”

5. Superhero Fantasy League

4. Van Wayne’s Dream Wayne Dream Team

3. The Team

2. DC Easter Eggs

1. Final Thoughts

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‘Riverdale’ 1.03 ‘Chapter Three: Body Double’ Review

Picking up right where last week’s episode left off, Cheryl Blossom reveals that she lied about what happened to her brother, Jason. Admitting that he wanted to fake his own death in order to escape Riverdale and his parents, Cheryl says that she and Jason dumped themselves in the river. She also reveals that they both also heard the mysterious gunshot, but before she can go into further detail, her parents barge in and take her away.

As for that gunshot, it doesn’t remain mysterious for much longer. Jughead uncovers that avenger scout leader Dilton, the one who discovered Cheryl by the river on July 4, had been the one who shot the gun. He was apparently teaching some of his scouts how to shoot. A bit of an anti-climatic reveal at first, but the truth was leveraged later on when Jughead and Betty put pressure on Dilton about his actions.

Meanwhile, Betty and her mom continue to butt heads over virtually everything, but each descends into their own darkness. Alice’s is brought on by her confrontations with Betty, Mrs. Blossom, and Hermione. Betty’s, on the other hand, is brought out in her effort to help Veronica get even for Chuck’s slut shaming.

At the same time, Archie is off pursuing his music career. After Ms. Grundy freaks out over the fact Archie comes clean about hearing the gunshot (even though he omitted Grundy’s involvement), Archie works with Josie and the Pussycats and helps them develop a new song for the Taste of Riverdale event.

Oh, and as for that gunshot? Well, at the end of the episode, Dilton ends up revealing that he saw Ms. Grundy at the lake on July 4.

Things are about to come back to bite Archie (and Ms. Grundy) in a big way.

Continue on to read the review of season one’s third episode, ‘Body Double.’ It’s separated so you can tackle all of the juicy Riverdale drama in chunks and explore the episode’s key moments and highlights. Click Next to scroll through, or jump straight to the part you’re most interested in:

• Digging Deeper
• Archie’s Roller Coaster Ride
• B.E.V. Gets Even
• Full Dark, No Stars
• The Verdict

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‘John Wick: Chapter 2’ Review: More Of The Same, And That’s A Good Thing

John Wick, “the Boogeyman” (or Baba Yaga, if you prefer) is one of the most feared hitmen in the Continental, the assassins’ guild at the center of the burgeoning “Wick-verse.” As we saw in the 2014 film bearing his name, he is not one to be trifled with. After the death of his beloved dog and theft of his car, he goes on a rampage of vengeance and mayhem. The first film was probably Keanu Reeves’ best role since The Matrix and had great style, action, and even some heart.

In the aftermath of the first film, John has completed his task, taking out the Russian mob and getting a new dog and car. John wanted nothing more to do with the world of assassins, only to be left in peace. However, the more he tries to stay away, the more he gets pulled back. This time, John has a blood bond, aka a Marker, with assassin colleague Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) that he must honor (or face even worse actions). Santino is trying to seize control of the Continental via John Wick. In the aftermath, John has a target on his back as Santino tries to tie him up as a loose end. As a result, the “real” John Wick must be fully unleashed!

OK, let’s first talk about a few things that didn’t work. The politics of the assassins had a bit of a lull towards the end of the first act. While John Wick is the type of movie that can function without action 24/7, it doesn’t need to be bogged down in an endless storyline and slow narratives for long amounts of time. The fact that it doesn’t hold your hand when orienting you into their world forces you to play some serious catch-up. Conversely, the film has a few moments where they try to “over talk” details instead of letting them organically flow.

With that out of the way . . . this movie rocks! Once it ramps up, it rarely slows down. As endless hordes of assassins try and take down John Wick, you get to see Reeves in full action. Now he’s no longer doing high octane kung fu like in his Matrix days, the fights are more brutal and have a great deal of bone-crunching aggression. Reeves is now 52, up there with fellow action star Tom Cruise and edging into the same “Old Man Action” group that Liam Neeson and Denzel Washington are a part of, but he’s in great shape and the fight choreography is very high octane.

While the primary antagonist Santino isn’t that great when it comes to strength, the secondary bad guys are great. The most surprising is rapper/actor Common, who plays Cassian. He and Reeves have the best live-action “Family Guy Chicken Fight” ever as they fight endlessly across Rome, at various points shooting at each other, fist fighting, falling down stairs and subways all over the city. Ruby Rose also plays mute Ares, Santino’s mute henchperson. She shares some sign language smack talk with John Wick as well. With this being the third action movie she has been in this year already alone, she is transitioning into Hollywood well.

The movie will also make you believe that everyone in New York City is an assassin. Literally, everyone in this movie, any number of people try to get at John Wick: a street musician, a bum on the street, a mother with her child at the park, they all try to take a stab at him. Speaking about stabbing, John’s a monster with a pencil! Of course, we also get the reunion with Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. We even get a few Matrix jokes thrown in there as well.

While John Wick: Chapter 2 doesn’t have some of the heart from the first one, it makes up for it in world building, action, and endless headshots. Expect a third film if this performs even average at the box office. There’s still a lot of story to tell!

John Wick: Chapter 2 hits theaters February 10. Directed by Chad Stahelski, John Wick: Chapter 2 stars Keanu Reeves, Common, Laurence Fishburne, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose, John Leguizamo, Lance Reddick, and Ian McShane.

Score: 8.5/10

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‘Legion’: ‘Chapter 1’ Review

Legion finally premiered tonight after loads of promotion for the FX series. Targeted at avid comic readers and non-superhero fans alike, Legion is an interesting take on a lesser known character from the X-men Franchise. Legion focuses on an Omega-level mutant named David Haller who has the powers of telepathy and telekinesis among others like time-control that are only hinted at. One of the main draws of the show is David’s seeming insanity and inability to control his incredible powers. Legion revels in this particular aspect of the character and doesn’t make any attempts at making David seem like a reliable narrator.

This season premiere attempts to set up David’s backstory and character while immediately jumpstarting the series in a forward progression. Make no mistake, this episode is not an origin story by any means (if that’s even possible for a mutant). It certainly shows aspects of David’s early life, but nothing is explained besides his obvious (and bad) attempts at keeping his powers under control.

Thankfully, Legion gives you exactly what you need to know in this first episode to keep you intrigued yet still maintains a copious amount of questions to keep the audience undeniably confused. Legion takes the viewers through multiple instances in time as David recounts his experience at a mental hospital to a psychiatrist (in the past) and a “cop” (in the present). There’s a TON of material to get through so let’s get started. Click next at the bottom of this page, or click on a certain point on the table of contents below:

#1 David Meets Sydney

#2 Jump to the Present

#3 Switching Bodies

#4 Sydney Returns

#5 Final Thoughts

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‘Arrow’: ‘Bratva’ Review

Arrow was all about Russia this week as things were going down in the flashbacks as well as in the present, with Oliver and his team having to head back there after General Walker and his men escaped custody. But it only gets worse as the team finds out that Walker took the nuke trigger with him to sell it to Markovian separatists and therefore everyone, except Rene, head to Russia to stop Walker.

Quentin returns to the office as he is out of rehab and Rene is assigned to keep an eye on him while the team is in Russia. Rene helps Quentin to be prepared for his interview with Susan Williams. Things get heated though when Rene brings up the death of Quentin’s daughter, Laurel who storms out when he get overwhelmed. The two men bond throughout the episode as Quentin admits that he has to try and deal with the death of his daughter without drugs and alcohol.

Over in Russia, Oliver gets a surprising greeting by Anatoly who punches him and brings up what Oliver did to one of the Bratva brothers a few seasons ago. Oliver asks Anatoly to help the team as he owes Oliver a favor. Anatoly agrees, but with a cost, which Oliver declines. Later on, Oliver learns about Felicity’s involvement with Helix as he is witnessing Diggle’s torture to one of Walker’s men that they caught. During a conversation with Dinah, Oliver opens up about how Prometheus got to his head and that he can’t escape who he used to be.

A showdown with Oliver’s team and Anatoly’s men against Walker take place where Diggle almost ends his life, but manages to control himself. A nuke is about to explode within 10 minutes and when Felicity tries to hack it, she accidentally gets it to speed up the countdown. Rory uses his rags to wrap them around the bomb and while it worked, it came with a price. Back in Star City, Rory reveals to Felicity that the rags stopped working and he decides to leave the city, but promises he will be back.

The flashbacks focused heavily on Oliver and Talia dealing with the drug dealer that he saw when he was temporarily back in Starling City the night when he saw Thea buy drugs from that person. Oliver kills the dealer and later discovers that Anatoly had been beaten up by Gregor who he is now planning to take down.

The episode ends with Susan meeting with one of her government contacts who informs her about Oliver’s past with the Bratva. She also gets a photo of a mysterious archer in a hood that was running around in Russia back at the same time as Oliver several years ago, and Susan begins to put the pieces together. A lot went down in tonight’s packed episode so we got a lot to discuss. So hit the next button below and let’s go through some of the highlights and important moments of the Arrow Season 5 episode: “Bratva”

#5: Russian Flashbacks With Talia Al Ghul

#4: Quentin’s Post-Rehab

#3: Dinah’s First Mission With The Team

#2: Ragman Saves The Day, But At A Cost

#1: The Ending With Susan Williams

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‘Legends Of Tomorrow’: ‘Turncoat’ Review

Last week, we saw the Legion of Doom retrieve a device which housed the memories of their captive, Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill). Eobard Thawne, aka Reverse Flash (Matt Letscher), had the deliciously evil idea to make a few tweaks to said device before restoring Rip’s memories and now the reprogrammed Rip Hunter is doing the Legion’s vile bidding. After Rip assassinates George Washington (Randall Batinkoff) during the American Revolution, the Legends are forced to head to 1776, right into what is clearly a trap in order to fix the aberration and restore the natural order of the timeline.

The Legends travel back to Christmas Eve 1776, where they attend a party in Washington’s honor. While Stein (Victor Garber) and Jax (Franz Drameh) oversee the mission from the Waverider, Nate (Nick Zano) and Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) pose as a couple, and Ray (Brandon Routh) shrinks down in his Atom suit to help keep an eye on things. Meanwhile, Mick (Dominic Purcell) poses as a Continental Army soldier to assist as Sara (Caity Lotz) uses her unique charm to convince Washington to come with them. Suddenly, the redcoats storm the party and while the trio are trying to escape, they run into the new and improved, 100% more evil, Rip Hunter. Needless to say, this doesn’t go so well. Rip proves to be the Legends’ perfect enemy as the American Revolution rages on around them.

There’s a lot to talk about in this week’s episode, so hit the next button below to follow along as we break down the highlights and critical moments of “Turncoat.”

5. Legends Depowered

4. Skin on Skin

3. Evil Rip

2. Mick and George

1. Final Thoughts

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’Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’: ‘BOOM’ Review

Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. 413 – “BOOM”

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. lived up to its title very quickly in this week’s episode as Senator Nadeer is confronted by the Watchdogs that believe she is an Inhuman. Shockley crushes a Terrigen crystal which releases the mist to test their theory. However, he wasn’t prepared to discover that he is actually an Inhuman himself as his skin begins to generate a rocky cocoon and goes through Terrigenesis before blowing up Nadeer’s room. When Shockley returns to The Superior, he is furious at him as he wanted Nadeer alive no matter what.

Back at S.H.I.EL.D., as they learn about Nadeer’s death and the exploding Inhuman, Daisy and her team try to track the person down. When Fitz and Simmons figures out that it was Shockley who emerged as the explosive Inhuman, they alert Quake and Mace right away. Shockley tries to fight back, but ends up getting thrown into a cell that they drop out of the plane before he blows up again. However, we discover that Shockley is capable of regenerating his skin every time he blows up. Later in the episode, Quake and Shockley have a showdown while Fitz and Simmons are working on a device that will trap him inside of it. While that mission is a success, it came at a price as Mace is taken by The Superior.

Coulson is desperately looking for the real Melinda May after discovering that Radcliffe had kidnapped her weeks ago and planted an LMD version of her inside the organization. They are following a woman whose face we have seen this whole season: AIDA, or to be more exact, Agnes, the woman that Radcliffe used as inspiration for his LMD. They try to get help from her to understand more about Radcliffe, but Agnes doesn’t want any part of it. She claims that Radcliffe cares about healing and prolonging life and that he wasn’t capable of what Coulson was claiming. However, she changes her mind when Coulson explains Radcliffe’s influence by the Darkhold.

However, Radcliffe got notified early in the episode that something was wrong with Agnes and sets out to help her. He contacts Agnes, who is collaborating with Coulson and Mack, while following Radcliffe’s instructions. When they meet up, he convinces her to come with him and how he is planning on helping Agnes by inserting her mind into this virtual world called the Framework. While they get away, Coulson realizes that May is still alive as he overheard Radcliffe’s speech about “another subject being in the Framework”. Back at their hiding place, Agnes is put into the Framework and later on passes away, with her mind now inside of the virtual world.

Given everything that happened in tonight’s intense episode, there is a lot of things we want to discuss. With all of that said, hit the NEXT button below and let’s go through some of tonight’s biggest highlights and important moments in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4 episode: “BOOM”

#5: The End Of Senator Nadeer (?)

#4: Twist Behind The Explosive Inhuman

#3: The Inspiration Behind AIDA

#2: Has S.H.I.E.L.E.D. Been Infiltrated By Another LMD?

#1: Verdict & Other Thoughts

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