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 could 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'll 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)

Something Inhuman This Way Comes

Louise: “Do you really always treat everyone that bad?”

Medusa: “Locus was here to kill us.”

Read the room, Medusa. She was there to kill you because you treat everyone like shit.

Add Audrey the vet tech to our growing list of people who are absolutely shocked when an inhuman does something inhuman.

Crystal desperately wants to find her family. It’s the most important thing to her right now. But, I guess a swim in the ocean with a cute guy you just met is practically the same thing.

Tibor has stumbled upon the quasi-Klingon and his gang of rebels who want to depose Maximus and bring back Black Bolt, the benevolent.

Look, I’m not saying that Maximus is a good king. I’m just saying he’s not necessarily a racist king. And that’s gotta count for something.

I guess when you grow up on the moon where there is no weather, you may come to the conclusion that creating lightning is a good way to draw attention.

I don’t understand the caste system. At first I thought it was just people who didn’t have a successful terrigenesis. But now I don’t know how it works.

I'm also having a hard time understanding Medusa's motivations or at least her way of looking at the world. She is so adamant about Maximus getting a fair trial and being fair and letting the people decide things but just an episode ago she was ordering people around as if they were insignificant because she was the queen. I can't place where she's supposed to be coming from at any given time. Is she a benevolent leader who wants everyone to be treated fairly? Is she a controlling queen who wants to continue the caste system? I just don't know.

I really appreciated that story that Karnak told to Mortis about how everybody wanted to kill him but he fought for him to stay alive. I actually felt bad for Mordis because I agreed and I thought this earlier: why was he locked away while Black Bolt was allowed to remain free? Other than of course Black Bolt being the heir apparent to the throne, both of them are equally as dangerous but there was nothing, as far as we know from this small story, that would have indicated that Mordis would have been intentionally dangerous to the people of Attilan.

Five seconds later Karnak goes and ruins it by saying, "Haha just kidding! I was actually the one that wanted him to die." And Karnak and Gorgon laugh about it as if it was just a given that, oh yeah, for sure, we wanted him dead. Like what the hell guys?

In the ever-recurring question of where do people get money to pay for all this stuff? We now have Moonman Maximus, who has somehow bankrolled Declan's entire research operation. I can understand dark money coming from shady organizations on Earth that are funding SHIELD and Hydra but I don't understand how Attilan has a functioning economy that could support this type of operation.

So Gorgon is dead, but then again probably not. Unless he was supposed to die and come back by some miracle in season 2, in which case, yep. He’s dead.

Speaking of dead, Maximus slit Tibor’s throat in the most bloodless ABC-friendly way ever. I mean, that was BAD.

I see that next week on the schedule is Thor: Ragnarok, which, now that I know that, the throw-away line about Crystal being the God of Thunder lands a little bit differently.

I'm also having a hard time understanding Medusa's motivations or at least her way of looking at the world. ... I can't place where she's supposed to be coming from at any given time.

Five seconds later Karnak goes and ruins it by saying, "Haha just kidding! I was actually the one that wanted him to die." And Karnak and Gorgon laugh about it as if it was just a given that, oh yeah, for sure, we wanted him dead.