from Vulture.com
https://www.vulture.com/article/the-undoing-recap-season-1-episode-4-see-no-evil.html

The Undoing S1 Ep 4: See No Evil

The Undoing Recap: Ugly Truths
By Roxana Hadadi



Photo: Niko Tavernise/HBO

I think Hugh Grant is a good, but limited, actor, and the more I see of him as Jonathan Fraser, I realize how fitting it is that he’s playing a character who is also a good, but limited, actor. I personally find Jonathan detestable because of what so many other people in his life seem to be ignoring — for the millionth time, let me mention the mysteriously disappeared $500,000, the use of a conference in Cleveland as a cover story, the whole lying-all-the-time thing — but more and more, I can understand how he conned so many people so for long. Most of the time, we want to believe in some kind of intrinsic goodness in people. Unless there is some kind of irrefutable, undeniable, absolutely certain evidence of wrongdoing, we want to believe people are innocent. We bend over backward to do so. We ignore our own instincts. We shrug off our intuition. And when people show us, again, who they really are, we only have ourselves to blame for not believing them the first time.

The book on which The Undoing is based, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s You Should Have Known, does a wonderful, layered job at probing at this idea: that as much as we want people to change, they rarely ever do, and we can’t blame them for that. Instead, we should be considering why we accept the situations we do, and why we make certain assumptions, and why we create these false, outsize narratives in our imaginations about who we are. In You Should Have Known, Grace is a respected therapist whose brusque style turns off some people but has landed her a deal for a book that addresses all these topics, in particular the way that women act in relationships. It’s ironic, then, when the know-it-all therapist ends up entangled in a murder investigation because of her husband’s lies. I wish The Undoing had adapted any of that subplot, because I think as Grace’s career becomes increasingly irrelevant to the show’s narrative, we also lose the inner struggle that the book so well captured for this character.

Instead, we have an increasingly unreliable Grace, one whom I worry we can’t trust about anything. How did she go for a walk around Harlem on the night of Elena’s murder without remembering it at all? Why did she never once mention getting called all those times by a mysterious number that ended up being Elena’s number? (Also notice that she tells Detective Mendoza that she never picks up the phone if she doesn’t recognize the number, but she did pick up when looking for Jonathan, and it ended up being a telemarketer — so I’m not totally sure we can buy her staunch denial here, either.) And I don’t even know how to discuss that oil painting! Did she sit for Elena? Or was Elena really so obsessed with the Frasers that she, what, followed Grace and did the portrait from memory? I have no idea! I am not sure I really like how much Elena is being made into an outsized stalker, one who potentially was trailing Grace for months, when we never saw any inclination or mention of anything suspicious before now!

Is all this confusion why Franklin goes on the offensive so hard? Is this Franklin’s way of gaining some measure of control in protecting his daughter: using his wealth and his influence to maintain as much normalcy for Grace and Henry as he can? I suppose so. Monetarily, Franklin is already out $2.5 million — $2 million to get Jonathan out of jail and brought back home, plus that missing $500,000 that I WILL NEVER STOP TALKING ABOUT BECAUSE I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY NO ONE IS ASKING ABOUT THIS — and we also see him putting up cachet, not just cash (I’m sorry, I’m sorry). He secures the services of Haley Fitzgerald, who clearly doesn’t seem to like either Grace or Jonathan (… I get it) but agrees to take the case as a favor for Franklin. He leans extremely hard on Reardon’s Principal Connaver to keep Henry in school; that “old-fashioned cocksucker” speech was pure President Snow. He is honest to Grace about the unhappiness of his marriage to her mother (another detail from You Should Have Known that has little impact here because it was fumblingly adapted) as a way to beseech her not to stay with Jonathan. And when he sees Jonathan in jail, it’s with the gaze of a predator sizing up his prey. I believe him when he says he would kill Jonathan, and I also appreciated how much of a toll his “I’m done here” seemed to take. Franklin has a lot more to say to this man he never wanted as his son in law, and we see his shock and disgust again when Grace is hospitalized after fainting in the park, and Jonathan whips out his “pleasant and pushy doctor” act to look after her. I actually wrote down “gross” in my notes at Jonathan’s aggressive “nice guy” antics during that scene, and I’m sure Franklin would agree.

Another thing with which I’m sure Franklin would agree: Jonathan being home isn’t good for anyone. It’s not good for Henry, who has that very weird altercation with Miguel at school (there is no way Reardon would have even allowed either student to continue attending after the investigation started, right?) and who clearly wants his parents to get back together. It’s not good for Grace, who swears to Jonathan that she’ll play “the assigned role of the wife” and no more, and then collapses from a panic attack (or maybe … guilt?). It’s not good for Fernando or Miguel, who get ambushed by a mesmerizingly condescending Jonathan at home; we learn here that Jonathan has met his daughter before. When he offered to take the girl away? Readers, I screamed!

Haley is screaming (internally, obviously) too, right? Who the hell are these people? Grace, who really gets the brunt of Haley’s socioeconomic analysis (“They conceal ugly truths … and they think they can get away with it because they’re rich”), absolutely refuses to take the stand in her husband’s defense. That’s going to look bad in court. And maybe Jonathan could make up for Grace’s absence with his schmoozing, with his charisma, with his ability to amiably pour a cup of tea after discussing the details of a murder. I was amazed as Haley was by that, and I think those wild swings of mood are telling us something about Jonathan that we should file away. Other important reveals from Haley’s discussions with her new client: Jonathan has cheated before (of course) and his estrangement from his birth family seems, well, suspicious. Jonathan’s main deflection tactic seems to be insulting other people’s intelligence or social status, and when he uses both of those methods against the family he left behind? Yes, he’s hiding something. Jonathan is always hiding something. And that whole performance during the TV interview — the squinting eyes, the gulping breaths, the pained expression on his face — when he says of Elena’s murder, “I lost someone I loved”? Seems like he’s hiding something in that moment, too.

Money Works Best

• Can the Frasers please leave Miguel alone already? Between Henry’s bizarro attempt at a handshake at school and Jonathan trespassing into the Alves’s home to swear to Miguel that he didn’t murder his mother, I would be getting a restraining order against this entire damn family.

• I have a special fondness for men of a certain age eating alone, and Donald Sutherland eating soup by himself at the head of that expansive dining room set in his gorgeous, empty condo made me surprisingly emotional. I don’t know why! Aren’t we all having a hard time right now? Leave me alone!

• On the one hand, David E. Kelley leans too hard on the “judgmental Black woman puncturing a world of mostly white wealth” trope, but on the other hand, Noma Dumezweni is undeniably great as Haley. She has two standout line deliveries this episode: Her “Perhaps I could suggest that you killed her. Did you?” to Grace during their strategy meeting, and her bland description of Jonathan’s cheating as “the sad fuck.” She really seems to loathe the Frasers, and man, who doesn’t!

• Jonathan having the gall to call himself a victim, just “not in a conventional sense,” was so totally in self-absorbed character. I was impressed.

• How is Grace really going to complain that Franklin isn’t giving her “unconditional support” when the man is leaning on half of New York City and opening up his bank account to meet her needs? Come on, man!

• SPOILER STUFF: There were a few scenes throughout this episode in which Kelley sort of adapts elements from You Should Have Known, but they don’t have the same impact because the context is lacking, and I was particularly irritated by how half-baked the conversation is between Franklin and Grace about how she and Jonathan got together. We’ve had no backstory yet in the show about that, but Franklin says she fell so hard because she had told Jonathan “exactly what perfect for you meant,” and Jonathan “was just giving back what you wanted.” This conversation is too opaque in the show to matter, but in the book, we understand that when Jonathan and Grace met at college, she was already upset by her father’s second marriage, she felt disliked and pushed away by his second wife, she wanted someone open to the idea of creating an insular family just for them, and she found Jonathan’s desire to be a doctor noble and honorable. She changed after meeting Jonathan, molding her entire life around him, and we understand how wary that made Franklin in the book because You Should Have Known takes the time to develop that tension. No such luck in The Undoing.

from Meaww.com
https://meaww.com/black-monday-season-2-episode-7-review-mo-dawn-don-cheadle-regina-hall-who-are-you-supposed-to-be 

Black Monday S2 Ep 7:
Who Are You Supposed To Be?

************************

'Black Monday' Season 2 Episode 7 sees Mo and Dawn momentarily get back together before things go south again

When Mo and Connie were talking, Dawn walked in and to make things not look suspicious, Connie kissed Mo which made things more awkward, and Dawn, in an attempt to overcompensate, asked Marcus out

By Pathikrit Sanyal
Published on : 16:30 PST, Jun 28, 2020

     

Don Cheadle and Regina Hall (Showtime)

Spoilers for ‘Black Monday’ Season 2 Episode 7, ‘Who Are You Supposed To Be?’

After a long break, ‘Black Monday’ Season 2 Episode 7 came back and with a bang. Things at the TBD Group is as chaotic as it always has been. The episode was centered around the TBD Group’s Halloween party, even as everyone was scheming to achieve their own agendas.

The episode begins with Blair (Andrew Rannells) coming up with a new plan to become legit once again and move away from their scammy nature. Of course, to do that they would have to pull off something illegal once again. With confidential information gained from his secret boyfriend Congressman Roger Harris (Tuc Watkins), Blair wants to trade on the Japanese Yen and make a quick profit.

But nothing comes easy for the group does it? To be able to make a significant return on the trade, Blair needs the $30 million African-American Scholarship Fund that Marcus Wainwright III (Dulé Hill) had entrusted Dawn (Regina Hall) with. Dawn is uncomfortable with the idea which is only made worse by Mo (Don Cheadle) agreeing with her. 

But why does Mo want this? Well, Mo, as we have seen, trapped by the FBI, has now become their informant inside the TBD Group. The FBI knows that Dawn (Regina Hall) and Blair (Andrew Rannels) caused the eponymous Black Monday crash on Wall Street but they need more proof. Mo’s help in getting them either Dawn or Blair would give him a clean slate.

But Mo doesn’t want Dawn to get into trouble. After all, despite everything, he has a soft spot for her. And so does she for him. As the night progresses, Dawn and Mo end up getting back together. Their romantic reunion, however, is ruined by Mo learning that Dawn had let Blair use the funds. This would get Dawn in trouble because he’s already informed Connie (Xosha Roquemore) of the trade that’s about to take place. 

In the end, Mo manages to avert the crisis by feeding Keith (Paul Scheer) the information about the trade, so that he could take it up the vine to the man he’s working for, Mo’s arch-enemy Larry Lehman (Ken Marino). Because Lehman made the trade first (and subsequently lost money), Blair and Dawn could not, saving them from the FBI.

Despite everything seemingly falling into place, things end up in a tense place. For one, Blair and the congressman seem to be not in the best space. After all, Blair stole the blank check he gave the congressman. Also, when Mo and Connie were talking, Dawn walked in. To make things not look suspicious, Connie kissed Mo. 

Of course, that made things more awkward, and Dawn, in an attempt to overcompensate, asked Marcus on a date. And somehow, all four of them made plans to go out on a double date. ‘Black Monday’ continues to be hilarious and awkward and dark. And it’s good that this underrated comedy is back on the air. 

‘Black Monday’ airs Sundays on Showtime at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Disclaimer : The views expressed in this article belong to the writer and are not necessarily shared by MEAWW.

 from Vulture.com
https://www.vulture.com/article/the-umbrella-academy-season-2-episode-5-recap-valhalla.html

The Umbrella Academy S2 Ep 5: Valhalla

The Umbrella Academy Recap: State of the Reunion
By Scott Meslow


Photo: Netflix/CHRISTOS KALOHORIDIS/NETFLIX

After being scattered around over a number of years — and with one amnesiac in the mix, to boot — it was always going to take some work to get all the Hargreeves children back in the same room. But with the apocalypse looming, there’s not a ton of time left for solo adventures.

So finally, near the start of this episode, Five calls for a full-blown a family meeting. Yes: At long last, the Umbrella Academy is ready to reassemble. (Even poor ghostly Ben, who no one but Klaus can see.) And while the reunion is shot in a way that makes it hard to tell if all of these actors were ever actually on the set at the same time, it is fun to see the old family dynamics come back into play when all seven Hargreeves children can bounce off each other.

Diego demands an apology from Vanya for something she doesn’t even remember. Five and Diego argue over whether they should just find Reginald, or find and kill him before he shoots John F. Kennedy. Luther raises the disturbing possibility that, as in season one, the family’s efforts to stop the apocalypse will actually end up being the thing that causes it. In the end, everybody leaves without much resolved, because come on, there’s still a whole half of a season left.

But the relative lightness of this family meeting, and the rest of the episode, is a reminder that Umbrella Academy is ultimately a pretty fizzy show up about the end of the world. For a series this obsessed with the apocalypse, the stakes of Umbrella Academy can feel perilously low. We’re routinely reminded that the end of the world is coming — six days and counting, y’all! — and at the meeting, Five specifically tells everyone that he saw literally all of them die before Hazel zapped him back in time. And what do Allison, Klaus, and Vanya decide to do with that terrifying knowledge? Spend a whole day getting drunk and goofing around in a beauty parlor. (Okay, fine, that’s exactly what Klaus would do, but the other two seem like a whole different story.)

But while the gang (with the exceptions of Five and Diego) are mostly treating the end of the world with an indifferent shrug, the show is also ratcheting up the personal stakes in some intriguing ways. After the meeting, when Vanya returns to Sissy and suggests they run away together, Sissy firmly refuses to leave her comfortably unhappy marriage to Carl, leaving Vanya heartbroken once again. This is the danger of a time travel romance. In addition to the standard-issue fears of remaking your entire life, Sissy is constrained by the social mores of the early 1960s, which would make it enormously challenging for two women to embark on a romantic relationship, or raise a child together.

Meanwhile, just when it looks like the trail might be going cold, the rest of the family catches a lucky break. Reginald Hargreeves — who might finally be ready to accept that all these weirdos who say they’re his time-traveling children may, in fact, be his time-traveling children — sends a limo with a cordial invitation for a dinner party at his place. Next time, it seems, the family reunion will include dear old dad as well.

But that’s a story for another episode. In the meantime, despite the episode’s long-awaited reformation of the Umbrella Academy, it’s Lila and the Handler who actually end up moving the plot forward. In an elaborate frame-up, Lila and the Handler make the Swedish assassins think they’re tracking Diego, and lure them into a trap. Once there, they successfully blow up one of the assassins, leaving only a bloody foot behind. One down, two to go.

I have not been a huge fan of the Swedish assassins, who have struck me as both cliche and weird for weirdness’ sake since they were introduced in the season-two premiere. But whatever their faults, it’s worth it for the Viking funeral that closes this episode. As the Swedes put the severed foot on a boat and light it aflame with an arrow, one brother lets out a wounded howl. As ridiculous as this show’s side characters can be, it’s always nice when Umbrella Academy takes a moment to remind us that they’re also human.

Raindrops:

• It feels like there’s still more story to be told about the source of Hargreeves’s deep and paternal affection for Pogo, which has so much more warmth than he ever showed his adopted children. Then again, Umbrella Academy has sort of implied that Hargreeves’s cruelty to the children was a part of his warped idea for what it would take to turn them into superheroes.

• It’s been a complaint of mine since the very beginning, so I’m glad Umbrella Academy has finally at least acknowledged the squickiness of Luther and Allison’s love story, given that they were raised as siblings. Vanya: “Aren’t we all brothers and sisters?” Allison: “Technically.” Klaus: “If you have to use the word ‘technically,’ we’re already in trouble.”

• Klaus, Vanya, and Allison’s Breakfast Club–esque dance number to “Twistin’ the Night Away” is cute, but it also feels a little like the show is trying to reverse-engineer the semi-viral “I Think We’re Alone Now” sequence from season one.

• At the end of the episode, Allison finally decides to tell Ray that she’s a superhero. Honestly: Not sure what the holdup was here!

• Hargreeves sends Pogo to bed with a reading of Homer’s Odyssey. (Specifically, the opening lines from Robert Fitzgerald’s well-regarded 1961 translation.)

• This episode’s Big Fight Scene Scored to On-the-Nose Pop Song (between Five and Lila) is set to the Interrupters’ ska-punk cover of Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy.” Fine.

• I’ll admit: I did laugh at the decision to set the Swede’s Viking funeral to a Swedish-language cover of Adele’s “Hello.” If you want to hear the whole thing, I’m pretty sure this is the cover the show used.

• Luther’s unusually large diet is one of Umbrella Academy’s most reliable sight gags, but come on, how many eggs was he scrambling in that pan?

• “Everyone changes the world. And it’s scary, but that’’s kind of the deal.” — Diego, summing up one of Umbrella Academy’s central ethos.

Justice League #8-12: Graveyard of the Gods

 GRAVEYARD OF THE GODS

Written by Scott Snyder
Penciled by James Tynion IV (and too many others to name)
Published Sept-Nov 2018

   One of the things about the Justice League is that they can never sit around for a minisecond, because that would of course be boring. So instead, things threaten the earth daily. In this turn, they're forced to swuare off with Lex Luthor's Legion of Doom trying to get the Totality on one front. On the other, Aquaman is inadvertently taking on a variety of aqua sea-gods, all of which are able to even put Superman and Flash into their submission.
   Running the show virtually from the Hall of Justice is Batman, who works in a bodycast after having his arms and legs broken in the previous arc. That is, until the entire thing is flooded and Metropolis and Gotham alike are flooded with ghoul-making seawater.
   In the end, Mera and friends find the graveyard of Poseidon in a desert, and use the dormant powers to fight back. Eventually they're able to overcome and send the alien ocean folk back to the hell they crawled out from. So yeah, while I'm a sucker for stories like this, DC has never had a problem introducing 10,000 things on 10.000 million fronts for you to get lost in. My problem - I end up not understanding half of it. This one was sadly again no exception. Hopefully the more I commit to this series though, I'll come along. Only one way to find out. 6/10. 

from SuperHeroHyhpe.com
https://www.superherohype.com/tv/450193-doom-patrol-season-1-episode-15-recap

Doom Patrol S1 Ep 15: Ezekiel Zone

Doom Patrol Season 1 Episode 15 recap
BRIAN BELL



Doom Patrol Season 1 Episode 15 Recap

Last week’s anti-climactic battle spoiled a build months in the making. That doesn’t mean that it didn’t deliver fireworks, though. Chief’s admission of involvement in the accidents that befell the Doom Patrol cracked a foundation the team spent so long to fortify. The revelation sent the squad into a spiral, splitting them up once again. But the heroic call isn’t easy to shake. Or, more aptly, tune out. Another final clash with Mr. Nobody headlined the season finale, and this time he has allies. Vengeance is hardly ever filling, after all. You’d be surprised how intimidating a brimstone-preaching roach and a tech-hungry mouse can be. It’s time for the Doomers to meet the Brotherhood of Dangerous Animals.
Before





Chief’s role in his “children’s” fortuitous mishaps becomes clearer thanks to a series of flashbacks. He is seen alongside Joshua at the Ant Farm circa 1968 discussing adding Larry as a test subject for the Immortus initiative. Joshua believes adding Larry isn’t necessary since they already have Rita as a test subject, but Chief isn’t swayed. His goal of understanding and accessing the power of immortality knows no limit. He adds Jane to the mix eight years later with Forsythe, the Bureau of Normalcy doc that tortured Larry, personally handing her over.

The arrival of Cliff’s brain brings Chief his first moment of guilt. His car accident was supposed to happen on the race track, not with Cliff’s family in the car. The death and injuries caused weigh so much on Chief that he divulges his decades of Immortus activity to Vic’s mother, Elinore. The final window reveals that Chief was present during the operation that turned Vic into Cyborg. Chief reassures Silas that choosing to save Vic would’ve been Elinore’s choice too before jumping into a recruitment pitch for Vic. Silas immediately pushes back, revealing that Elinore told him about Chief’s Immortus initiative. He turned his son into a freak because he loved him and wanted to preserve his life. Chief can’t answer the same question regarding his Doom Manor roommates.

After



Six months have passed since the team’s trip into the White Space. Rita and Larry are living together as they try to assimilate back into normal society. It isn’t working out too well though. Larry remains cooped up inside other than daily attempts to expand how long he and the Negative Spirit can survive apart. Rita works as a high school drama teacher, but can’t handle the vitriol her students sling.


Jane is living in the bus under an overpass, but she does finally return to the fake academy. She confronts Joshua as her personas begin to swap rapidly. Joshua apologizes for his role in Chief’s project, but he does have something that could help her. Chief developed a metahuman opiate that numbs both the good and the bad. Jane wastes no time, teleporting away with the drug before Joshua can list off a litany of concerns the drug poses. She injects the drug and her collective personas, including Kay, gather and lie in the grass surrounding the Underground’s dream lake.

Cliff and Vic have taken much more passive existences in the months since. Vic remains hesitant to reenter the field, choosing to fight cyber crime from the comfort of his bedroom. Cliff seems to only fill his time by buying food for Jane and secretly leaving it for her while watching the bus from across the street.
Getting Up Again



Larry and Rita seem to be switching roles. Rita grows more depressed as Larry grows much more chipper. The sweet and sour mood is interrupted by the faint sound of singing. You can’t leave that kind of curiosity unchecked.

Kay begins to stir in by the pond, following Daddy’s voice once again. Hammerhead goes after her, but Secretary pushes Jane to return to the surface. Hiding within her mind isn’t going to heal her. Secretary employs a fist when words don’t work, forcing Jane to wake up and find Cliff dropping off another meal. Seeing Cliff initially enrages Jane, but they begin to hear the music as well. It’s time for the tag team to reform and beatdown the bad Chumbawamba cover’s source.

The team reunite with Vic outside of Doom Manor and they all enter to find Chief staring at a painting of Danny. Mr. Nobody has trapped him and Chief’s newly revealed daughter within the painting and he needs their help to rescue them. Cliff immediate threatens to bail, but the rest agree to help Chief out of care for Danny and Chief’s daughter. Cliff joins them and the six enter the painting.
Don’t Call It A Comeback



The squad find Danny empty thanks to Flex rescuing most of the Dannyzens. In fact, the first creature the come across is a kaiju-sized Ezekiel. It looks like the alliance between Nobody, Ezekiel and Admiral Whiskers didn’t last too long thanks to Chief’s daughter. The two animals increased size is thanks to her and it sent Nobody on the run. The group retreats to the club, discovering the Beard Hunter is the source of the music. He partnered with Nobody to take Chief’s daughter, but that obviously backfired. Vic rallies the troops and they rush out to confront the beasts only to have Admiral Whiskers eat Cliff and Ezekiel eat Vic.

The team once again is forced to improvise. With a resolute Nobody on their side, the squad begins goading Ezekiel into eating them all while Larry and the Negative Spirit open a portal out of the painting. Nobody uses his narrative powers to force Ezekiel and Whiskers to get it, allowing Cliff to leap from Whiskers’ mouth to Ezekiel under a wave of spit. Jane and Chief find his daughter and join the rest inside the giant roach. With them all collected, Larry sparks the portal, transferring Ezekiel out of the painting.

The team emerges from Ezekiel’s body on top of Danny, now in brick form. Chief introduces his daughter, Dorothy Spinner, as Larry towers over everyone. Looks like using Ezekiel as a vessel caused everyone other than Larry to shrink. Larry picks up Danny, the team in tow, and brings them back into Doom Manor as Nobody and the Beard Hunter remain stuck in the blank white painting.

What do you think about Doom Patrol season 1 episode 15? Let us know in the comment section below!

from Vulture.com
https://www.vulture.com/article/away-recap-season-1-episode-9-spektr.html

Away S1 Ep 9: Spektr

Away Recap: Fourth Grade Science Experiments in Space
By Maggie Fremont


Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

We’re two weeks out from landing on Mars and you know the Atlas is due for at least one more catastrophe. As Misha has stated many times, the back-up water system the crew is currently surviving on wasn’t intended to be used this way or for this long, and it’s a miracle it’s even lasted this long. And then it dies.

The crew takes one last bag in a hopeful exercise to see what’s left for them, and end up with a measly 24 ounces of water to split between the five of them. It’s not enough to get through two days, let alone the two weeks they have before attempting their landing. Kwesi, who became fixated on water after watching his birth parents die of dysentery, gives the crew the rundown on what’s about to happen to them and suggests they should let Ground know that since they’re all about to go out of their minds like Emma demonstrated not too long ago, if they have a complicated procedure for them to perform to possibly save their lives, they should get it to them in the next six hours.

Oh, they have some ideas all right. Remember when I said that there was no way that info drop about the walls of the ship being lined with water to protect them from radiation was by accident? Well, we’re drilling into the walls now, people. The easier way to do this — and please remember in space “easier” is extremely relative — is to drill from the inside into one of the bladders of water. Making the astronauts go outside to drill for water is much more dangerous for a whole host of reasons, including, say it with me: spacewalk!

But drilling inside the ship isn’t without some grave risk. Misha, ever the calming force on Atlas, relays a (true!) Russian “ghost story” about the space station in 1997 when one of its modules, Spektr, was hit by a freighter during a docking exercise and the astronauts heard the hissing of air leaking into space, knowing it meant it was only a matter of time before their brains exploded. I mean, they were able to seal Spektr off before that happened, but just the thought of it is disconcerting. And it is one of the very real dangers the crew of the Atlas faces as it drills into the wall of the crew quarters. The wall is only one inch thick, so it is very reasonable to worry that they puncture the wall and let their oxygen into the vacuum of space. If that happens — if they hear that hiss — they need to get the hell out and seal off that part of the ship. Each crew member has a few minutes to grab their most prized possession from their pods in case that happens.

Oh, it happens. Of course it happens! Poor Ram, so nervous, punctures the wall and the team has to get out as quickly as possible. The crew quarters are lost to them. The outlook of their situation is dire. Everyone is grappling with the impending death of the crew of the Atlas.

Well, except for Matt. Matt’s been working on ideas for drilling from outside the ship, and his first plan literally goes up in flames. But after the failure in the crew quarters, and seeing the heads of the joint initiative gathering to put together speeches about the loss of the crew — giving up, essentially — he drops a hard F on the Mission Control floor and then gets shocked by a little static electricity. It gives him an idea so insane it just might work.

Meanwhile, up on the Atlas, the crew is accepting their imminent death. Embarrassed, Misha has to admit that in the few seconds they had to grab things from their pods, he grabbed his space dog and not his homemade vodka, which would’ve been very useful at this time. He’s worried he’d be kicked out of Russia if anyone found out. Everyone erupts in laughter, as people do in times of high emotional stress. Everyone, that is, except Emma, who you know is just the biggest fucking buzzkill at parties. Before things get too bleak, a message comes in from Matt: “Don’t lose hope, I have an idea.”

When presenting this idea to the people in charge he acknowledges that it amounts of a fourth-grade science experiment, but it really could work: They send out two astronauts, use a machine to give their space suits a static charge, open the valve where the water is on the outside, the water will turn into crystals because it’s pretty much absolute zero out in space, and the crystals will be attracted to the negative ions on the suit, letting the astronaut guide all the crystals into the water bags, which they can fill up and then toss on the ship. As ridiculous as it sounds, it’s the only option left. Bring on the static electricity.

Emma and Ram are the two astronauts going out on this Last Chance Spacewalk. It’s Ram’s first, so that’s fun. Earlier in the day, he made a comment to Emma about how maybe the silver lining of being alone is that “you can’t destroy any lives if you die.” Which, honestly, is such an awful thing to say to someone angsting over her choice of leaving her husband and teen daughter behind! Like, that offers no comfort to anyone. Emma’s response was to reassure Ram that his “death would destroy a life or two.” First of all, I really hate that turn of phrase. Second of all, if Ram was content to stuff down any feelings he had for Emma, I think they became very unstuffed in that moment. And then, as the two of them are sitting in the airlock waiting to go outside, Ram officially makes his feelings known: He tells Emma that before he thought that dying for a cause greater than him would be the sign of a life well-lived, but that’s not how he feels anymore. When Emma asks what changed, Ram lays it all out there: “You,” he says. When she tells him he can’t say things like that, he tells her that given the likelihood of death, he had to say it. Out in space, they’ll be fighting for survival and he’ll be “fighting to remain in a world with [her],” he confesses. I feel like there should be a No Talking in the Air Lock rule. People need to stop making declarations, whether positive or negative, before these spacewalks. There’s enough tension in that room, people!

Emma has no response, but there are a lot of conflicted looks. Then they go outside. It’s just the two of them out there and their job is done in awed silence. Matt’s plan works, and Emma’s surrounded by ice crystals that follow her over to Ram where the two catch them in bags. Once they get back in the airlock, they stare at each other like two big ol’ dummies who know they’re not about to die. Okay, Ram’s look might also be one of pure love — Emma is very hard to read — but dang, are they happy. “We’re gonna live,” she says. Ram steps closer to her in a very romantic way but they just continue to stare at one another. They know what they just shared together out there. Man, if these guys actually make it to Mars there’s gonna be some explaining to do!

Mission Control

• What a wholesome little teen love story we’re getting on Away. Isaac shows up to apologize for bailing on Lex after the accident and during the Pegasus situation, but it all reminded him too much of his dad. Thanks to his mom, he realized he needed to be there for Lex, not hide from her. When she tells him that on top of everything, she got tested for CCM and could very well have it, he isn’t scared off. He spends the day trying to make her forget, just for a little, all the things that are stressing her out. His first two attempts, church and chili, don’t really do the job. His third attempt — making out in the back of his truck — works perfectly, however.

• Uh-oh, when Matt calls Melissa to see how Lex is doing, she lies and says she’s totally fine when in reality, Melissa hasn’t been able to get a hold of Lex all day. Will this lie come back to bite Melissa?

• Emma gets another message from Matt right after he sends the static electricity plans and Emma weeps once more thinking about how she might never see him again. I’m here for their great love story, but this cannot be healthy!

• Misha tells Emma he’s sad he can’t be out there on the spacewalk with her, and knows he’ll never do one again. Emma’s honored she was the one with him for his last one. They’ve come such a long way, what a thing to see!

• I thought I could not love Kwesi any more until he said the sentence “I have an obsession with all things water.”

Lu’s perfect final words she sends to the heads of the Joint Initiative: “It was worth it.”

Thor #1-6: The Devourer King

THE DEVOURER KING

Written by Donny Cates
Penciled by Nic Klein
Published Jan-Aug 2020

   Thor is finally king! And now after the War of the Realms and everything else, he finally gets to enjoy the spoils... right? Nope. Not really. Before long,Galactus shows up and gives them the bad news about the long, black winter. What a drag. Worse yet, Thor has to be the World Eater's new herald thanks to Silver Surfer being sick or something? I dunno.
   So they go to 5 different planets for the the monster to eat so that he'll be strong enough to fight this Black Winter monster. Along the way, fan favorite Beta Ray Bill shows up to "help" Thor rid himself of this slavery. Also, Lady Sif shows up because... I don't know why. All the while, Thor's hammer grows eerily heavier. 
   In the end, Thor uses the power cosmic to turn Galactus into a gigantic bomb and explodes him to rid himself of the Devourer King. And with that, I'm sure everything is fine again, right? Meh.. I probably wouldn't bet on it. More awesome writing from Donny Cates and more than adequate pencils from Nic Klein... I give these an 8/10.