#two out of three fantastic villains ain't bad though

[utilitycaster]

Honestly it's incredible how masterful the hints within the story are regarding Liliana - how she is the darkest version Imogen could become, how she will tell her daughter to run away from the storm and then turn around and lure someone else's son into it. How she, someone who became entangled in the Vanguard while frustrated by a lack of answers and perhaps a desire to belong preys on those same insecurities in others. How she abandoned her daughter and then told her it was for her own good. Imogen just needs to invoke her name and the Vanguard recruits jump. Was there a world where she would have listened to a better persuasion check, or would it have just caught her off guard for a round or two?

#honestly liliana and ludinus complement each other beautifully his coldness and her false warmth #also otohan is there with a farting jetpack and a personality replaced by frogs i guess #two out of three fantastic villains ain't bad though #cr spoilers #critical role #liliana temult

[thetimelordbatgirl]

I liked Endgame at first but as time went on I realized how not good the movie was. But even while walking out of the theatre genuinely moved I remember even then not wanting additional MCU movies because the series felt complete. I was worried that trying to add onto it would turn the MCU into a mess and sadly I was right. Honestly, I think phase 4 made Endgame worse - either but exacerbating the problems from that movie or retconning/rendering pointless many of the movie's good aspects.

Phase Four definitely reads as desperation to continue the MCU, honestly. Cause phase one and phase two built up to Endgame, aka end of Phase Three....well, kinda....Far From Home is somehow in Phase Three, but you get what I mean. But like, mentioning Far From Home....its definitely where problems start to show. Keep in mind, I am not a fan of MCU!Tony Stark- I'm more of a animated adaptions fan at this rate- but like, he died in Endgame stopping Thanos.....only for Far From Home to ruin any legacy he could have left with, "Actually, here's another villain he caused and him leaving a weapon of mass destruction to a child and said weapon can hack into everything-" And then of course, we got the whole, "Is the multiverse real?", cause Mysterio was said to be pulling it out of his ass and therefore, this makes No Way Home jumping straight to Multiverse kinda fucking jarring. And of course, as its the end of Phase Three instead of Endgame, Far From Home ends with a cliffhanger.....so we in hell still.

By not ending at Endgame though, what can they do? They basically concluded almost everything Phase one-three set up......so they basically pull whatever they can to excuse keeping the MCU going. Multiverse? An ongoing plot still as of Multiverse of Madness. Spiderman's ongoing problems? Rushed his third film to add it to Multiverse stuff and basically threw aside that Far From Home thing pretty much in favor off MCU's bootleg Into The Spiderverse. Eternals??? Don't....DON'T get me started on them. They introduced too late into the MCU, so their existence brings questions on WHERE WERE THEY during the entire MCU so far, and they also retconned the whole Celestials thing, so guess Ego didn't look hard enough! Black Widow??? Also VERYYYY late, like, was 2012 really a bad time for a Black Widow film???? Or even phase two at best??? Or before Endgame at least??? Cause it literally came out after she died in Endgame, so what happens??? Yelena gets introduced as replacement, but also leads us to.... Dark Avengers? I mean, so far they got John Walker and Yelena, so....but find it hard to believe, given in comics it was Norman Osborn involved in it.... Young Avengers? Basically already setting it up, since Billy and Tommy were in Wandavision and may return in Multiverse of Madness if the leaks are true, Miss America is also in Multiverse of Madness, Eli Bradley is in Falcon And The Winter Soldier, Cassie has been in MCU since Ant Man and Kid Loki was in Loki....though gotta grab him from the void likely, plus you got Miss Marvel coming out and Iron Heart is confirmed to be in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.....only missing a few members, but MCU will find them hard to set up unless they prepared to retcon shit....which, lets be real, they are.

Only good part of Phase Four so far has been Shang Chi really, everything else falls to we didn't need it but meh to why?. And its still ongoing. Like, we not even mentioning them about to ruin the Fox X-men and Fantastic Four, just to introduce whatever the fuck the MCU X-Men.....oh, I'm sorry, The Mutants, if they are actually going to call the film that.....will be. I ain't even a F4 fan and I dread MCU takes, especially with Doctor Doom. Like, the fact that they couldn't just end at Endgame....and now we stuck with ruined characterization with Wanda, Sam getting the shield is now being disrespected due to marvels sudden love for Captain Carter from What If...?, Spiderman's life got thrown to shit just because multiverse needs, the Eternals bullshit, the Loki bullshit, the What If...? bullshit, Black Widow's film coming out too late....like, was just making a whole new universe of films that hard??? Was it really???

#anti mcu #like come on comics reboot all the time to do new stuff #mcu could get away with it #instead of being the mess it is now....

[nuclear-satan]

Final Space Season 3 Episode 1 Review **SPOILER WARNING!!**

...And Into The Fire we go!

I really have wanted to do a Final Space review for a while, so now - I'm going to do it, fuck it. Starting a couple episodes late, but after [insert shenanigans] I needed to let it cool off before getting back into it.

One last warning: THESE ARE NOT SPOILER FREE REVIEWS. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE NOT SPOILED AND DO NOT WANT TO BE. THESE ARE GOING TO HAVE SOME SUMMARIZATION INVOLVED.

With the disclaimer out of the way, let's get into it.

So, first of all, I have to acknowledge that this cold open? Fucking toasty. The entire first five or six minutes of this episode is flat out amazing and some of the best that Final Space is. Really intense - I love the dramatic cold open to a space chase.

Also, however, brief, the Quinnary reunion was nice. Quinnary is a ship that I enjoy subjectively more than objectively, but considering it really hits now even if S1 had issues... I can look past it yo.

Invictus proves his power and intimidation incredibly well this episode, between the Gary Zombies and even this first incredibly terrifying matchup - even Mooncake, who in any other situation has been able to zap it away, couldn't touch it. Really setting the villain well.

Small thing I want to acknowledge because there was some discourse on it -- Sheryl saying "I'm his mother; where do you think he got it from?" Was really nice to me. Obviously not all is forgiven, nor should it be, but it's just a nice bit of character development.

Then, Ava gets Yeeted by Bolo and breaks.

I could have taken a better screencap probably, but I will not.

Anyways, considering the cast of characters was way too fucking big in S2, I'm not... particularly aggrieved by this, especially since I didn't really like AVA anyways, but it is pretty unfortunate that one of the only female characters just got the ax without basically any development other than the obligatory robot comphet stuff. Whatever, I think this is setting the stage for HUE AI, so I'll bite my tongue.

That said, the conversation that HUE and AVA had before she died? Sweet.

And then they're in Final Space. Goddamn, they really went the extra mile animating and illustrating this episode. Gotta acknowledge it.

Also, quick note: New OP is a banger.

...And this is when the review's going to start getting a bit more negative, because we jump straight into everyone's favorite trope: a time skip.

I. I really have issues with this timeskip. This episode was fucking ballistic in the pacing, and I really, really wish that I could have spent some more time within Final Space just trying to survive. I get it. It was a premiere, so you wanted to go all out, but... I really wish we could have savored it. There's just suddenly a timeskip! We don't get to see how they've been surviving. We don't get to see shit. Quinn just suddenly appears in a new outfit, and then we're off the races.

I dunno man, I really had issues with the pacing of this episode, and this is the backbone of it. It's okay to take a breather, even in your opening episode. You have to know when to take a breather. This episode sorely needed it, and it didn't get it.

Also, obligatory Danger Groins mention. Yeah, I know that's not what he says. It's what he says in my heart, tho.

From here, the Gary zombies show up, which are... admittedly intimidating.

They get attacked, and - okay, can we fucking mention the titan fights for a moment? No matter what happens this season, I'm here for this. This is Gurren Lagann levels of ridiculous, and I fucking love it. Smash that planet, yo.

lThey get separated, and Avocato and Gary have a bit unfitting but fucking hilarious moment that has to be acknowledged. This shit ain't straight, yo. There's no fucking way you tell me this shit is straight.

And... *sigh* I really have some goddamn issues with the next... I don't know, I wasn't watching, six minutes?

"There's no more grossout scenes," we were told. "Season 2 gross out is done. No more weird fetishes."

Okay.

Okay, sure.

I'm sparing you the images, because I don't want to post grossout on my blog, but... holy shit, Quatronostro's birth scene. First of all, which of the fuckers on the blog keeps putting their fetishes in this show? Clarence is gone, so you're making Mpreg Tribore (I realize Tribore is canonically genderfluid, but he's male presenting at the time of this birth... and at every time... I don't have faith in two cishet men to actually make good on that, sorry. I hope I'm wrong.) Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

The scene is gross, uncomfortable grossout. This isn't the 90s anymore!

Also, the other thing I have to acknowledge - that motherfucking robot. It's season 3 - haven't we moved past the screaming = funny leftover humor from Olan's YouTube days? Clearly fucking not.

Also, Ash did a really out of character thing this episode by shooting the robot. I... what is Ash's character, exactly? Ash is an inconsistent enigma. Someone define that poor girl's character, already.

After that... mess.... though, we do end up with a very solid ending. Bolo headbutts the planet, Quinn and Gary get swept up in the blast, and we end up with a very beautiful but quick scene of Gary and Quinn embracing one last time - it's very reminiscent of chapter 9, and I did thoroughly enjoy it.

iAlso, the shot of Mooncake saying "Gar" while looking for Gary, presuming he's dead? Oh, that just hurts.

And then we end with HUE saying, "We are alone, Gary." Honestly, genuinely was a little disappointed to find it wasn't just HUE and Gary. I thought this line was going to come later in the season, and it was just going to be HUE and Gary in a callback from season one. It wasn't, and I'm genuinely very disappointed as someone who's favorite dynamic in the entire show is S1 HUE and Gary. Of course, as a result, I'm not unbiased, and... well, I do stan Quinn too.

And goddamn, look at the Earth. She got fucked uuuuuup. I think I remember hearing next episode that there's only one survivor left, which I do NOT buy as a concept, but it's very cool to see a show that does not shy away from full apocalypse scale destruction of the earth. It like, never happens, so it's a nice subversion. Get fucked, earth.

Overall Thoughts:

This episode is the definition of a mixed bag. The beginning is fantastic and the ending is solid (even if personally disappointing), but the middle is genuinely kind of bad. The pacing is rough, there's season 2 tier grossout that I did NOT need to see, and that robot deserved a punt in the face.

The animation is fantastic though. Everyone point and stare at the animation.

I still think the good outweighed the bad, though - if only because of my personal attachment to the characters. I think this was a decent episode - probably on par with the other openers... actually, I don't know.

My disappointment with this episode was more than with the Toro Regatta, but that was more due to my own expectations and thus not fair to rank it that way. I don't know - all the first episodes of the seasons are meh at best, and this unfortunately due to the lackluster middle fit that mold as well.

If you asked me to give it a ranking, I'd probably say if we assume a 5 out of 10 is average, I'd give it a 6. Decent, fantastic when it's good, but the entire middle section really brought me out of it and because of that I can't give it anything more than that.

I've heard episodes two and three are good, though - excited to see the Ventrexian for myself after all the fuss, so let's see how it holds up!

I'm scared for Biskit tho.

#Final space #final space spoilers #Final Space Season 3 #Final Space Review #Review #gary goodspeed #avocato #quinn ergon #quinnary #hue #bolo #AVA