Daredevil 2.05

Kinbaku

- Elektra is back in Matt's life
- Matt and Karen go on a date
- Karen does some digging into Frank Castle, trying to figure out why some key information about him isn't in the newspapers
- Matt flashes back, a number of times, to the events of 10 years ago when he first met and fell for Elektra; when she captured the mobster who killed Matt's father, and got off on watching Matt beat him up but he stopped short of killing him, which she wanted him to do
- the episode ends with Elektra revealing that she knows that Matt is Daredevil and has brought his uniform, as they are about to get attacked by ninjas
- looks more and more like Punisher may be back before the end of the season
- not a great episode but a pretty good one
- I like Elektra a little more than Matt at this point
- thinking now that Born Again will be next season
- what does the title mean?
- Foggy meets with his ex (from season 1?) and boy does she look different

Teen Titans 1.03

- 1st villain: Cinder Block (?)
- 2nd villain: Plasmus - not sure if the background they show here is consistent at all with his past in comic books
- Robin and Cyborg get into a fight over a misunderstanding when they are battling Cinder Block, who has broken into prison to retrieve Plasmus, who is being kept in deep sleep in human form; when he wakes up he turns into a Clayface like form able to split himself into separate entities and reshape himself into other shapes and forms
- Slade is behind Plasmus and Cinder Block, although the Titans don't know that yet
- Cyborg quits the team for a while but in the end comes back when the team needs him most
- good character moments, especially when the team is mourning Cyborg's departure

Legends of Tomorrow 1.11

The Magnificent Eight

- In an effort to hide from the Time Masters and their servants (the Manhunters), Rip and the gang head to the Wild West in the 19th century
- Rip wants the group to lay low but of course the group balks at that and go into town anyway; a town named Salvation
- Story A: Ray, using the name John Wayne, becomes the sheriff and has to take on the Stillwater Gang with some help from Lenard, Mick, Rip, and Jonah Hex as well as Shayera and White Canary and Firestorm (at the end); they beat the gang but then the Manhunters show up and they beat them too
- Story B: Shayera and Kate go on a trip to find an older woman who Shayera thinks she knows; it turns out to be herself in a previous life; she warns herself about trying to love anyone but Carter and also learns of a bracelet that she previously did not recall wearing at the time of her first death in ancient Egypt
- Story C: Dr. Stein helps helps to cure a boy of tuberculosis, despite warnings from Rip about meddling with the time stream; in the end he learns the boy's full name is Herbert George Wells
- Hex uses the same line he used in JLU about it not being his first time meeting time travelers; it turns out he and Rip have met before in a town called Calvert, OK
- much in the way of cliched moments but on the whole it was a pretty good episode
- I was hoping Shayera's earlier self would join the battle at the end against the Manhunters, but she did not show
- At the end they learn that the Time Masters have issued Omega Level orders to destroy the team, which means they will be sending an assassin after their young selves

Arrow 2.02

Identity

- lots of little things going on in this episode but the sum of them all is not greater than the parts
- this one dragged a bit, especially near the end
- Roy wants to be a vigilante
- Thea is tired of Roy's antics and dumps him temporarily
- Felicity hates her new day job as Ollie's assistant
- 1st appearance of Bronze Tiger
- yet another set of weak bad guys doing something bad, this time stealing medical supplies headed to a hospital in the Glades
- subplot involving Ollie wanting to help the hospital in the Glades but then misses the fundraising event because he has to stop bad guys n gals

Teen Titans 1.02

Sisters

- Blackfire comes to Earth an visits with her sister, Starfire, and the rest of the team
- Blackfire is the older sister; she charms her way into the lives of the team which leaves Starfire feeling very undesired
- It turns out that Blackfire is on the run from the police from another star system (Vega?)

- simple enough story but great job with the characters and character moments; especially Starfire
- love how some things are just left unexplained like how Robin got on that spaceship or how the alien probes know exactly where on Earth Blackfire is located or how the alien probes mixed up the two sisters

Daredevil 2.04

Penny and Dime

- can't believe I waited that long between episodes
- definitely worth returning to
- funeral for Grotto
- Punisher has earned the wrath of the Irish gang led by Nesbitt; they track him down and capture him, torture him; Nesbitt wants his money back; Punisher doesn't give until they threaten his dog; even then he's got a couple tricks up his sleeve (a bomb in the case with the money; a razor blade up his sleeve, under the gauze); with some help from Daredevil he escapes; Daredevil gets him medical attention but also gets him arrested; Officer Mahoney is the the arresting officer and gets all the credit
- not as much Foggy in this episode
- Karen gets a bit of a spotlight when she does some sleuthing and breaks into Frank Castle's home; nothing has been changed since his family was killed
- on the whole a very Punisher-centric episode, like the last one but more so
- Matt and Karen's romantic relationship advances quite a bit but at the end of the episode he goes home alone and finds Elektra waiting for him
- looks like the Punisher is out of the picture for now but he will probably be back but maybe not in this season, maybe in another Netflix Marvel TV series
- Daredevil visits Melvin Potter and gets some upgrades to his uniform

Teen Titans 1.01

Final Exam

- not an origin episode
- the Titans battle 3 new graduates of the HIVE Academy: Jinx, Gizmo, Mammoth
- ultimately Slade is the one behind the attack
- love the characterizations of the Titans more than the story
- the Titans hadn't heard the name Slade before now and don't get a glimpse of him

Arrow 2.01

City of Heroes

- Ollie returns from the island for a second time; this time he was there by choice

Arrow does quite a bit
- defeats a gang of hood who are angry about the effects of the earthquake
- avoids a hostile takeover by Isabel Rochev
- goes to see his mother in prison
- saves his sister from the gang of hoods
- visits Tommy's grave
- rescues Felicity twice (once on the island; once at Queen Consolidated)

- towards the end of the episode Roy gets saved by a woman who looks like Black Canary
- overall I was pleasantly surprised
- the moment at the end where Thea visits her mother in prison got me a bit choke up
- still no chemistry between Ollie and Laurel
- more flashbacks to the island with Slade and Shado

Legends of Tomorrow 1.10

Progeny

- this show just keeps getting better, more nuanced
- the team travels to the year 2147 where Vandal Savage is the tutor of young Per Degaton
- Rip's plan is to kill the boy who will 5 years in the future unleash a virus that will kill billions; naturally some members of the team refuse to go along with the plan, so Rip agrees to try kidnapping Per Degaton
- that doesn't seem to change anything, but nor does talking to the boy, in the end they return the young Degaton when White Canary's life is threatened by Vandal Savage

- lots of good moments in this one
- Kendra's flashbacks to the early 20th century and Carter and Aldus
- Ray's discovery that his technology is being used for evil  purposes in the mid 22nd century by a company that he (at first) thinks his son founded but later discovers it was his brother
- Len and Mick duking it out and dinally settling their differences, revealing that the Manhunters are on their way after them all
- Rip trying unsuccessfully to kill Per Degaton, and then the ultimate discovery that their actions didn't change things for the better but only sped up Degaton's rise to power

Legend of Tomorrow 1.09

Left Behind

- All kinds of developments
- the team gets split up, once again
- On the Wave Rider, Chronos wrecks havoc before kidnapping Captain Cold and sabotaging the ship
- Ray, Sarah, and Kendra get left behind in 1958, as the ship disappears into the time stream
- Ray and Kendra make a life together and have given up on ever seeing their teammates again; 2 years later (in 1960) the wave rider returns
- Ray had become very comfortable living with Kendra; she's in love with him but not with the world they live in
- Len discovers that Chronos is actually Rory, whom he did not kill a couple episodes back; Rory is just as nuts as when he teamed up with the pirates and hell bent on revenge
- everyone converges in Nanda Parbat, where Ra's Al Ghul runs the League of Assassins and where Sarah ran off to; when the others show up Sarah betrays them and they are slated for execution
- Rip gets Ra's to agree to trial by combat and Kendra battles Sarah until Chronos/Rory shows up; then Rip agrees to help Ra's defeat Chronos in return for their freedom
- Len escapes from Rory's ship after blowing his hand off and then reveals who is really under the Chronos mask
- All is saved; the team returns to the ship; Rory gets locked up; Ra's agrees that Sarah shouldn't stay in Nanda Parbat
- Rip announces that their next destination is 2047
- very fast moving episode, which covered a lot of ground, but for the most part worked in large part because it was building off of things that happened in earlier episodes

Daredevil 2.03

New York's Finest

- best episode yet and a big improvement over the previous two
- even before the big fight at the end I really got into this episode
- similar to the season as a whole, this episode started kind of slow, I wasn't too crazy about the way the rooftop scene began but as it evolved I became more and more intrigued by it as Daredevil and the Punisher debated the morality of killing bad guys
- I also dug the scene in the hospital where Foggy talks the two gang members into not fighting; I don't know how realistic it was but I thought it was well done
- Claire makes a reference to Luke Cage and her role in the Jessica Jones series
- the fight scene at the end was over the top awesome; loved how it was filmed; like the scene from the end of episode 1.02 it was intense fighting filmed in a way that gave the viewer no chance to catch their breath
- in the rooftop debate scene I was torn between Punisher and Daredevil; Daredevil's arguments weren't very persuasive
- liked/loved the nods to the Marine Corps although as I understand it Punisher's ties to the Marine Corps only date back to the Born mini-series
- there were a few moments early in the episode when Charlie Cox sounded non-American
- I hope Murray shows up again
- I never was very fond of the notion of Nelso & Murdock taking on Grotto as a client