Week 110: Something Inhuman This Way Comes..., more

Something Inhuman This Way Comes…: Oh, how I wish Gorgon would yell "STOMP!" when he uses his stomp attack.

Jen's reaction upon meeting Gorgon isn't "thank you for saving our lives just now" or "are those hooves?" or even "hey you're Black and your cousin is Asian, what's the story with that?" It's "he talks about you a lot." Ugh, the writing on this show. Come back, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.! All is forgiven. (Not you, Slingshot.)

Reno's previously inexplicable bloodlust now *sort of* makes sense, in that he works for a violently paranoid boss who would not tolerate an interloper on the illegal marijuana farm. But it remains nearly impossible to take seriously that anyone would commit murder over illegal marijuana farming. This product simply cannot be worth that much money. Was this story originally supposed to be about harder drugs and ABC insisted that it be toned down for broadcast television?

I must give the show credit for finally confronting its terrible values regarding the royal family and Attilan's social structure. I assume now that it was the plan from the beginning to address them, so I'm relieved that the show was always aware of this massive problem, but for me the damage to its likability is too severe to undo. I also doubt that an entire society would change overnight just because an enslaved enemy fighter used her dying words to point out to the king and queen that… no, wait a minute, on this show it could. Never mind.

Seeing Crystal and Dave get teleported away by Lockjaw should have gotten a bigger reaction from the veterinarian, who must already have found the case bizarre, from the world-record size of the patient to the glowing tuning fork growing out of his face. I just wanted a big emotional reaction of some sort for fun, like a scream, and the show kind of whiffed it. They can't even do that right.

I want to enjoy that Mordis talks like a regular person, instead of talking like a dramatic comic-book character the way that everyone else does, because this show needs any fun that it can get. But Mordis's speech signals that the writers understand that what they're creating isn't working. If you're writing something and a Frank Grimes finds his way in, pointing out by his very existence that what's happening in the foreground doesn't make sense, then stop and rethink what you're doing.

Is the day-night cycle in the MCU much shorter than reality? Jen and Karnak go on the run for their lives in broad daylight, then it's fully nighttime during the return to camp where Karnak is tortured upside-down and rescued by Gorgon, then Jen dumps Karnak just before dawn if his statement is to be taken literally. And yet the entire story seems to have taken, what, 2 or 3 hours? Am I wrong? (3/10)

The Gentleman's Name is Gorgon: The novelty has worn off. The show is no longer fun-bad, just bad. Am I being too hard on it? It has (had) its fans, but I don't think that anyone can watch most of the MCU and argue for this as one of the best titles produced in the overall series.

I was prepared to like this episode more, because it finally lets loose with some action (albeit underlit in the stuntperson-obscuring tradition of Defenders) and it has one great line that made me laugh out loud (Karnak's "please don't shoot me, please don't shoot me" after the villains assume that he wants them to shoot). What kept me from liking it more is the treatment of Mordis. That guy was drafted into fighting for Maximus with the promise of his "freedom" and clearly didn't want to be there, he complained (justifiably) that Black Bolt's royal blood created a double standard in their treatment, he was talked down in a fight by Karnak appealing to his humanity, he was safely knocked unconscious, all fine if not great. Then the Inhumans taunt him for believing them, make fun of the idea that he deserves freedom, taunt him again for "losing" the fight, and cause him to panic that he'l be imprisoned in solitary confinement again, which is a horrifying fate that you'd expect any reasonable person to resist. I appreciate the characters' progress over the brief series, like Medusa nudging Black Bolt towards non-violence (or at least more measured violence) and Karnak being more appreciative of Gorgon, but their treatment of Mordis here undermines that progress, and once again makes it very hard to like them.

Maximus remains a mystery even this late in the series: Does he actually give a damn about reshaping what he genuinely considers an unjust society, or is he driven solely by resentment at the way that he personally has been mistreated by genetics and his family, or is he pretending at all of this and merely desirous of the throne itself? His true motivation seems to vary from scene to scene, but that could easily just be a misreading on my part. In the opening scene, he dreams that he is angrily confronted by the royal family (Black Bolt doesn't even get to talk in a dream?) and wakes up on the throne, implying that being king is a fairly boring job and you'd wonder who'd want it. Then later, we see a flashback to his combat training, which makes a nice point about him learning to use surprise and sneakiness to his advantage, even if it is weird that private combat training would occur in the royal throne room. His killing of the revolutionaries reminds us of how bloodthirsty and dangerous he can be when he finally acts, and their deaths bring the toll of dead to what, about 1% of the population at this point? (I'm counting about five revolutionaries, about five Genetic Council members, and about five on the Earth mission, give or take.) I wish that the series had spent more energy on the why of Maximus's revolution instead of the how, but he has slowly proven to be the most complex and interesting character on the series.

I appreciate the use of songs in this hour. The series has always had a decent ear for licensed music. If only the rest of it worked as well. (4/10)