Redemption is a beautiful thing, especially when it comes to our favorite television shows, because let's be honest. We don't want to see these stories stumble and fall. We want them to be successful, to leave us in awe and dying for more and thankfully last night...Supergirl completely and utterly redeemed itself as a show. 

Gone were the hints of teen drama and the distrust and disdain amongst the characters, instead all of that was replaced with everything that makes this show great. Once more, Supergirl was virtuous and inspiring as we spent an hour reuniting with the enigmatic Luthor family as they dealt with the fallout of Lillian's actions in the midseason finale and well...this was an outright stroke of genius because by bringing evil back into the fold, Kara finally has something big to focus on once again, and at the same time, the show was able to deliver a fascinating character study in the process.

Because 'Luthors' decided to explore the notion of change, specifically as to whether or not true good can be corrupted and if evil can possibly change its ways and that was all accomplished by giving Lena and Lillian a ton of screen time wherein Lillian did her best to turn her daughter toward the darkside so to speak, by trying to frame her and make her believe that the only fate for a Luthor was to live a life of evil and it was fascinating to see evil try and tempt good in this fashion because it was obvious Lena was heavily conflicted to a certain degree, especially when it came to mom's promise to give her daughter everything she ever wanted...a chance to be accepted and loved. But when all is said and done, in this case, we came to learn that good will not let evil seep in and villains will always be villains.

I say that, due to the fact that Lena didn't take the bait, and saw through her mother's lies at the proper moment and unfortunately for her...mom's plan to turn the public against her worked for the most part and that's where Supergirl's uplifting nature came into play. Because despite the fact that everyone firmly believed that Lena was guilty in helping her mother escape, Kara was the only one who believed in her and her innocence and it was refreshing to see everyone recant their statements and apologize and be reminded of the uplifting lesson that one cannot judge a book by its cover...

We also need to take a moment and highlight the nerdier moments in this episode, because Lex's war suit was an awesome shout out and I have to admit I am thoroughly intruiged by the fact that Mister Mxyzptlk has found his way onto the show as well because I'm fairly certain he's never made a live action appearance in any iteration of the SuperVerse. Either way, this is the Supergirl we know and love, and it was so nice to get back to uplifting moments with a message and to see quality villains once again and I'm ecstatic that the show is correcting their mistakes and I can't wait to see what wild things come out of ol' Mxy's crush on Supergirl come next week. Until then. 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has in many ways delivered everything us geeks and nerds have ever dreamed of; epic and powerful superhero stories that take our breath away with stunning visuals that leave our eyes wide in excitement. But despite its many accomplishments and its many spinoffs, at times the MCU is greatly lacking when it comes to intimate storytelling, specifically in the fact we rarely get an opportunity to dig deep into the psyche of the characters and what they are feeling when it comes to the particular trials and tribulations they are going through.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to this storytelling void and well, it's received a free pass from the fans because it's Phil Coulson and his buddies doing incredible things week in and week out as they save the world from those who would do it harm. So imagine my surprise when I tuned in last night to see an episode that decided to completely and utterly break from the norm, and finally give us an intimate story, where the characters are struggling internally with the events around them and well, that made 'BOOM' one of the finest episodes season four has offered up to date as we saw both Director Mace and Agent Coulson battle their feelings and try to make peace with them during some trying times.

When it comes to Director Mace, his struggle was simple...where does he fit in at S.H.I.E.L.D. now that the secret is out that he's not an Inhuman, just a man who needs a serum for his strength, and that struggle was compounded by the fact that his serum has become a hazard to his health. There is now a chance that the next time he uses it, he could suffer from a heart attack and for a man that wants to make a difference, all of these revelations were downright crippling. He is desperate for a purpose, and the fact that he was unable to do more than sit back and watch the team try and figure out who killed Senator Nadeer was more than he could bear so when the opportunity arrived to spring into action, he took it, risked his life with the serum once again and found himself captured by the Superior for his efforts.  

While Mace dealt with his inferiority complex, Mack and Coulson spent their time in Spain searching for a woman named Agnes, who as it turns out was once the love of Radcliffe's life and the model for Aida and she was the key to finding the wily doctor and more importantly to Coulson...Agent May. But alas, Agnes wanted no part of helping Phil find Radcliffe because she is dying from a rare tumor and wanted to live her days out in peace, leading to fury from our favorite agent, to the point where he was ready to arrest her to get the answers he needed to find May. But Mack's wisdom and demands that Coulson handle this in gentle fashion eventually led to the dying woman agreeing to help Phil and a brief confrontation with Radcliffe before Agnes gave in to his promises of life eternal, escaping with the mad doctor. But what matters here is that Phil showed just how much he cares for May, and how much her not being around is ripping him to pieces and the most beautiful moment of the night came from the hope and glimmer in his eyes when he came to realize that May is alive and well.

Yet what was also fascinating about this episode is that it wasn't content to just let the heroes explore their feelings, the villains have a heart as well, and that was never more evident than it was with Radcliffe, who opened up big time about Agnes and how much she meant to him and hate the guy or not, it was heartbreaking to see him watch Agnes slip away in the closing moments of the show and well, when all is said and done, this was an outright beautiful episode. One that mixed action and adventure and heart together in magnificent fashion and I honestly hope that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. does more of this in the future. It added a level of depth I've never seen before when it comes to this series and adding more of this can only further enhance an already stellar season. Until next time.

I have to give it to The Flash. This whole Savitar-potentially-killing-Iris storyline has done wonders for the show, allowing for the characters to expose their deepest and darkest fears in fascinating fashion and it would seem that this particular push in its storytelling is showing no signs of slowing down, because last night's episode, 'Untouchable', provided us with more of the same, taking the characters down a dark road as a potential future without Iris is more or less starting to push Barry and his friends to the breaking point. 

At the same time however, this episode also served as a Flash throwback if you will, bringing back the feel and vibe of the first season, where new meta-humans showed up on a regular basis to challenge Barry Allen and he tried his best to fully understand his abilities and it accomplished part of that by bringing forth one of Alchemy's meta creations, a man named Clive Yorkin, who was apparently humiliated by Joe West and a few other C.C.P.D. officers in the alternate timeline, and his ability as a meta, was that he possessed a terrifying touch of death. Anything the man touched disintegrated into ash, and the fact that he was coming after Joe, is what led to the team facing down death and the horrors that come with it once again.

Since Clive couldn't get to Joe right away, he went after the next best thing...his daughter, and it became a race against time to save her life and that's where the darkness settled in. Caitlin for example, had to once more walk the line between good and evil since her powers were the only way to slow the spread of Clive's evil touch and there was quite the scary moment where Killer Frost made an appearance and if it wasn't for Julian, who knows how far down the evil rabbit hole she would have gone and speaking of Julian; he also grappled with the harsh reality that Clive existed because of his actions as Alchemy and when all is said and done, it was downright fascinating to see these characters struggle with the darkest parts of their psyche and while they eventually were able to conquer it all to help save Iris, I like that the show is exploring the consequences of their actions, or in this case, potential future consequences as well.

As for the rest of the throwbacks to season one, I made mention that the show once more explored just what a speedster is capable of and that came by way of Wally and Barry's relationship and the fact that Barry was now the mentor in the hopes of teaching Kid Flash to be fast enough to save Iris' life and well...what made this so cool and fascinating was that Barry more or less stumbled and stumbled hard at being a teacher. Sure he learned from the best, but in the end Barry has always figured everything out on the fly and that's what it took to finally see Wally achieve wonders, trust, and once he put his total faith in Kid Flash to do what must be done to save the day, young Wally achieved amazing wonders and managed to stop Clive and in the process save his sister.

But despite the happy ending, there is a sense of impending doom that continues to grow week after week on this show. It's clear now that despite the promises being made, the team and more so Barry, haven't a clue as to whether or not Iris can be saved and the uncertainty is starting to break all of them bit by bit, and considering the fact that Luigi's Restaurant, another piece of the puzzle to keeping Iris alive, fell into place last night...I'm starting to have my doubts as well, especially when you consider that ending, with Jesse returning to Earth Prime to ask everyone for their help regarding another prediction from the future...Grodd and his Gorilla City; and it should be interesting to see this iconic villain's return come next week and what kind of influence will come from the team facing off with Grodd once again, when it comes to saving Iris from Savitar. Until next time.

Despite the fact that Freeform's Beyond continues to captivate us with a fascinating new take on the Superhero genre, and provides us with quality storytelling week in and week out, there's one question that everyone watching the show still has on their minds...exactly when is Holden going to embrace his powers and his destiny? After all, he's spent six episodes fighting hard to avoid his newfound abilities, instead choosing to focus on reclaiming a life that has more or less passed him by. But, as it turns out, his pursuit of such a life is what's been holding him back all along because last night's episode, 'The Hour of the Wolf' finally saw Holden embrace his power, in absolutely stunning fashion.

If anything, this growth from Holden was actually quite the pleasant surprise, simply due to the fact that in many ways...this episode felt like filler. There were plenty of light and fluffy and seemingly unimportant moments abound, but little did we know that this episode was quietly building to one heck of a storytelling volcano that culminated in an epic finale that I honestly watched several times over because of how awesome it turned out to be and oddly enough, we have Charlie to thank for all of this, since her pushing for Holden to get out of Kansas to visit the observatory was exactly what Holden needed to focus on something other than living a normal life.

In fact, Charlie made it clear to Holden that he shouldn't strive to be normal, he should be himself and well...her tutelage on life led to lessons on his power, and slowly but surely, Holden started to understand what he was capable of. In between his superpower classes however, the bond between he and Charlie continued to grow and their interaction and budding romantic relationship is precisely what I meant when I said that this episode had a 'filler' feel to it. It seemed like the world belonged to this couple and all the bad they knew of was being wiped away. But the story saved the good stuff for the second half of the episode because a single revelation set everything into motion.

That shocking surprise came by way of Jeff, who discovered that Pastor Ian was not quite who he seemed, seeing as to how his particular organization had ties to Hollow Sky, leaving Tom worried and upset about his family's safety from here on out, and it only got worse from there. Because an off the cuff conversation between Charlie and Miss Shoemacher, wherein Charlie told the Hollow Sky executive to get bent, led to Shoemacher finding and apologizing to Yellow Jacket, along with reactivating him with whatever resources he needs to find Holden and bring him in. This brought us to the most stunning moment of the night where Holden and Yellow Jacket squared off once again, only this time, Holden harnessed his power completely and stunned his nemesis in epic fashion.

Unfortunately, as awesome as that show of force turned out to be, the episode didn't exactly end in happy fashion. Holden took a bullet, Charlie was left behind and well, nothing will ever quite be the same now that Holden knows exactly what he can do. Plus Holden will have a few more surprises to deal with once he gets home now that his brother has an understanding that more is going on than meets the eye and the fact that Arthur has awakened. Either way, it's clear now this episode was the grand setup for the next three...and that means an epic season finale is likely headed our way. Until next time.

I have to admit, that for the first time ever, I was nervous and hesitant to tune into an episode of Supergirl following last week's sub par and off the wall episode. Part of me was seriously concerned that we were about to slide down a slippery slope filled with more bizarre character decisions and throwaway plot lines.  Thankfully though, the show didn't continue down this strange new path last night, since 'The Martian Chronicles' instead delivered a tense and fun little episode that found a way to repair and recover some of the damage that was done to some of the fundamentals of the series as well. 

The show accomplished this, by finding a way to reunite the team, to the best of its abilities anyways by bringing a common foe back into the mix, the White Martians. M'gann made mention of the fact that her people had discovered her location at the end of last week's episode and they wasted no time in coming to earth, making their presence known in the most violent way possible, and in order to get to M'gann and bring her back to Mars to face trial for her crimes against her own people, they used her own friends against her and holy cow, that's when things got interesting and tense because we spent a good majority of the episode locked within the DEO...

Because the Martians saw an opportunity to disguise themselves as some of the characters we know and love and that's where the tension came into play since we spent a good chunk of the story playing 'Who's a White Martian?' and well, this was definitely my favorite part of the night because the series decided to take a page from a horror classic, paying a wonderful homage to 1982's The Thing, even going so far as to recreate a scene from the film where they use fire to figure out who is actually a White Martian and that led to some awesome action and adventure where the team was forced to work together once again in order to defeat these powerful beings. But while the gang was able to beat the White Martians and find a sense of unity after losing it last week, the show still needed to find a way to set Kara back on the right path since she was so angry and divisive in the last episode.

I want to say that it was successful in doing that, but well, considering the fact that a true hero and beacon of hope acted like an angry child toward her friends for no good reason makes for a lot of damage to undo and the show more or less justified her behavior by exposing her anger and fury to be related to fear, specifically in this case, the fear of being alone. Yes, it would seem that Kara is fully aware of the fact that her family and friends are growing and evolving into new phases of their lives and she's terrified that they will at some point abandon her for something new. Is it a perfect way to justify her behavior? It is not. However, the show is trying to set things right because it seems as though someone behind the scenes knows they made a mistake and effort is a good place to start, and well...I will give the writers credit in the respect that we all find ourselves worried about such matters from time to time because the people we truly love mean the world to us, and not having them around sucks. 

So if anything this episode was a step in the right direction, and I'm glad for that. The last thing Supergirl needs to become as a series is an angst driven superhero show, not when it has spent a year and a half putting out positive messages and positive vibes toward the audience by way of an intelligent and solid female lead, so I certainly hope this path of repair continues as the weeks progress so we can get back to incredible adventures with a hero that inspires all of us, and hopefully Supergirl gets a worthy foe soon as well. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this show is at its best when there's a giant threat on the horizon, so the team has something to rally behind and the quicker that baddie gets here, the better. Until next time.

You know, every single time I sit down to watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this season, all I can do is smile. Because holy cow, the show has truly found its stride and every single episode is just delivering on all of the goods, providing us with plenty of action and adventure and jaw dropping moments and I've never seen the plot move this quickly when it comes to this show and last night, was no exception to that rule, and if anything, 'Hot Potato Soup' managed to up the ante by giving us one epic ending...and the return of the Koenig family...

Yes that's right, Patton Oswalt once more donned his bevy of badges to reprise his role as...all of the Koenig brothers in an episode that centered around the fact that Coulson entrusted this clan of doppelgängers with the Darkhold, meaning that Radcliffe and Nadeer's merry band of thugs were after the Koenigs to get their hands on the book and let's leave the plot summary at that, because we have some bigger and more important moments to discuss, starting with the Koenigs because we finally learned so much about this mysterious family last night. For starters, we found out that there are four brothers in the clan, since we met the anti-war Thurston in this episode and we also discovered that all of them were able to get into S.H.I.E.L.D. by way of the fifth Koenig, L.T.; their elder sister and all around bad ass and the whole segment of the show that revolved around them was nothing short of magic because Patton Oswalt is ridiculously talented and it's always a joy to see him bring these characters to life. 

But while that part was a blast, there were some heavier moments to be found in this episode, specifically in that the pursuit of the Darkhold, finally revealed May to be an LMD and I don't think I'm alone in the fact that this reveal was quite the unexpected twist. I wholly expected the May-Droid's secret to remain just that for a lot longer than a handful of episodes, but this show does love to surprise and well...it was a devastating reveal when all is said and done since Phil's heart strings were tugged upon for a brief moment by the May-Droid and you could see the horror in Coulson's eyes once it dawned on him that the woman standing before him was actually an android and it should be interesting to see where the LMD storyline goes from here now that everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. is completely aware of the fact that May has been kidnapped.

However, the most intriguing and disturbing part of last night's episode, was Radcliffe's storyline and the fact that this man is quickly becoming one evil villain through and through. Sure he may not be a bloodthirsty monster, but good heavens; he faked being a captive and had Billy Koenig threatened with physical harm in the hopes of getting info on the Darkhold and he also had no issues with invading Billy's mind with his machinery to get the necessary intel and at this point, the man is getting outright scary when it comes to how far he will go to get what he wants and to make matters worse...we also met the Superior last night and well, it turns out that he's nothing more than an angry mountain of muscle, but he does have an ugly goal in mind...to kill Coulson, and Radcliffe doesn't seem too concerned about whether or not Coulson lives or Coulson dies...

When all is said and done however, this was one breathtaking episode. Between the hilarious moments involving the Koenigs, to the stunning surprises with May and Radcliffe, this story simply didn't let up and I loved every single second of it. I'm really digging that the show is giving us a far more low key villain, or in this case, committee of villains for the back half of season four. It means that the team has to face a dynamic range of evil, making their plight all the more difficult. Either way, I love that the stories are getting all the more intense and I would hope that now that everyone knows that May is missing that a big time May-hunt is about to get underway to save one of their own. Until next time.

It seemed for a moment there last week, that The Flash was headed for some incredibly dark territory. The team was at their lowest, the specter of Iris' death surrounded them all and well...it made sense to go in a darker direction if the plot was focused squarely on saving Iris for the second half of season three, but it would seem that the powers that be didn't want everything to be gloom and doom from here on out, because last night's episode, 'Dead or Alive' ended up being quite the lighthearted romp.

Which is wonderful, because there was a fair chance that the subject matter of this episode could have taken us to some dark and ugly places, since last night, the mystery woman that popped up at the end of last week's episode was revealed to be a 'Collector' from Earth-19 named Gypsy, and she had come to our world to claim H.R. Wells since our favorite eccentric writer broke an important law on his world by traveling between Earths and the time had come to pay the piper. But the S.T.A.R. Labs team was having none of that, and thanks to a quick suggestion from H.R., Cisco was able to invoke 'Trial by Combat' to save the H.R.'s life, and well...that's when things went into lighthearted mode.

Granted, there was real danger for Cisco to face here since Gypsy was able to Vibe just like he can except...she has more or less mastered her powers, unlike Cisco. But that didn't stop the show from giving us some absolutely hilarious training sequences and some heartfelt moments as the hour progressed. In fact, it was simply a real treat to see the team rally around H.R. after all this time and believe in the value of his life and his potential to their cause down the line and this drive to save H.R. was uplifting and inspirational since the team was united and filled with purpose once again and the best part is that Cisco is the one who drove this whole campaign to save Wells, allowing him to open up and bond with H.R. in the process and of course...save his life and kinda/sorta get the girl for a change.

However, this episode did find a way to fit in some somber moments, and it's clear now that Iris is struggling to a certain degree when it comes to her knowledge of the future, to the point where she's beginning to panic, but not for the obvious reasons. As she explained to Barry, her fear is not due to the fact she's staring down the possibility of death, but because she is mortified of meeting her end without having accomplished anything important in her life and that need to leave her mark in some form or fashion, and her admitting this aloud to Barry, was undoubtedly the most heartbreaking moment of the night, and here's to hoping that she finds faith in Barry's promise to find a way to save her, so we don't have to sit through another unnerving moment like the one we witnessed in the warehouse...

Either way, what a fun episode through and through and it was simply awesome to see Cisco take the center stage for a change and I honestly hope the show finds a way to focus on side characters more as time goes on, because it was really refreshing to see Vibe play the hero in this episode and meet his romantic match in Gypsy and it was also wonderful to see the gang give H.R. a real chance for a change and truly make him a member of the team and make it known he's home here on Earth-Prime. But despite all the feel good vibes this show sent our way, the showdown with Savitar is still looming large and one has to wonder if Barry's new plan to use Wally's exceptional speed to save Iris is the key to changing her dismal future...until next time.