Spoilers

“Backseat Driver”

Dexter in NYC continued as he is able to capture himself the “Dark Passenger.” One of the things about Dexter that I love is how intelligent he is. He truly uses his brains to do his stalking of these serial killers.

I am very excited too about the next episode which seems to be a serial killer convention. Dexter took the invite that the Dark Passenger was given and he plans on attending in his place. I had heard about that episode before I started the series so I am excited to see what happens.

Det. Claudette Wallace is sniffing around Harrison, basically laying everything out in front of him in an interrogation, trying to get a confession. Harrison does a great job of keeping her at an arms-length.

I love the character of Blessing. The amount of friendship and joy that he brings to the canvas is really needed. I love his family and I also love how his wife isn’t a fool. She did a background check on Dexter (although that eventually helped Dexter find the Dark Passenger).

Angel Batista is on his way to New York as he is retiring from the police force in Miami. There will be some confrontation with Batista and Dexter at some point of the season, you would think.

Good episode. Excited to see the next episode.

Spoilers

“A Beating Heart…”

“Camera Shy”

I started the new Dexter series on Prime today. I was not sure whether or not I was going to watch this after watching the up and down quality of Dexter: Original Sin. Add that to the fact that I did not watch the last several years of Dexter and I did not know the back story of what happened and I was not sure if I wanted to donate the time needed.

However, I have heard some positive word of mouth about the series and Dexter: Original Sin did have some upside to it. I have the opening in the schedule as I just finished two Apple + series so I decided to give this new version of Dexter a shot.

I will say that I enjoyed the first two episodes of this as Dexter came out of his coma after being shot in the chest by his son. Dexter followed Harrison, his son, to New York to do what he could to help him.

There is another serial killer in New York using the moniker, Dark Passenger, which ticks Dexter off right away.

If there is one thing that I would say about this series is that it feels like New York is really small. Dexter made his way around the city easily, maybe too easily.

I liked the scene that saw David Zayas reprise his role as Angel Batista from the original show, facing off with Dexter after he had awakened from his coma. Batista suspected that Dexter was the Bay Harbor Butcher, but he had no evidence. Dexter was able to escape from the hospital before Batista returned to see him again.

There are two more episodes currently active on Prime (via Paramount + with Showtime) and released on Fridays.

Spoilers

“I Thought You’d Never Shut Up”

I thought some of the blood was scaled back overall in season three. They used the blood better in season three in my opinion. Still brutal and gory, but less gratuitous.

That all changed in the finale. Wow was this bloody and violent. I loved it.

I have to say that I think the third season was so much better than the second season, which I stopped watching half way through. I just was not interested in this. I was not sure if I wanted to continue watching into season three.

I am glad I decided to watch season three.

The Invincible vs. Conquest battle was just unbelievable. I really thought Eve had bit the big one. I am glad she did not. Apparently Eve’s special gives some details, but I have not watched that.

I am not happy that Conquest’s body was kept by Cecil as a way to find information. This is absolutely a massive mistake and will bite him in the butt before too long.

The series of troubles coming for season four was long and I did not know any of them.

And how long will the humans put up with being killed as collateral damage? There were a bunch of human causalities in this episode.

I did enjoy this season way more than season two. It was on par with the first season. Hopefully, this will continue to be top quality.

Spoilers

“What Have I Done?”

The alternate timeline Invincibles arrived on earth, sent by Angstrom Levy, a villain Mark believed he had killed, and brought destruction and chaos to the planet.

This was a brutal episode of Invincible and saw some real stakes as the major cities of the country were devastated and thousands of people were killed. Sadly, Rex was one of the victims, as he blew himself up taking out one of the Invincible variants.

Our Mark was going through it as well. Not only was Eve badly injured, but he had to face the fact that this entire thing was his own fault. Angstrom brought these Invincible variants to the earth in order to get Mark and Mark was having a difficult time dealing with that guilt. Even though this is not Mark’s direct fault, the idea that it only happened because Angstrom was after him was a tough pill to swallow.

The adaptation of The Invincible War was filled with action and drama. The battle with the incoming Invincibles was tough and we saw all of the world’s heroes responding.

It also feels as if there is a slight warming of the relationship between Mark and Cecil, though Mark is still very cautious around him, and who could blame him for it?

Then there is no rest for Mark as we got the arrival of Conquest during the clean up of the city. Mark was itching to hit someone and these two powerhouses went straight for one another, setting up next episode with another bigtime throwdown.

This episode was compelling as could be and was one of the best of the series so far.

Spoilers

“All I Can Say is I’m Sorry”

This one was a tough episode to watch.

It started off with the Batman v Superman set up as the character who would become Powerplex lost a sister and niece in the battle of Chicago between Omni-Man and Invincible. He blamed Invincible for the loss and tried to get justice.

In the end, Powerplex’s quest for justice cost him the life of his own wife and son.

Honestly, when I saw that, I immediately thought about Jay Schmidt from the YouTube show pReview’d, which I watch regularly and I know review this show. Jay is very sensitive to anything family-wise since he became a father recently. Seeing the after effects of Powerplex’s attack was devastating, even as an animated show. I had to go watch the pReview’d episode after this and, as I expected, he did not react well. I felt bad for him because he is such a sweet man.

The themes of the episode focused on the results of the loss of life around the fights of the superheroes and how much responsibility the heroes share in the deaths. This is an argument that some films and stories have made, including the loss of life in Man of Steel and, as I mentioned earlier, BvS.

I read a comment that this event in the comic book made a huge impact on Invincible and that it may be a needed moment for the character development of Mark.

Changing the subject for a sec, I just do not like the new black and blue costume. I miss the old one, but it looks as if there is a reason for that change as the tag at the end of the episode looks like something is coming.

Spoilers

“This Was Supposed to Be Easy”

Invincible and Eve form their own protection company. Invincible Inc., and they take the contract to protect the prison after there was an attempt to break out Paul.

Invincible takes on the dragon form of Mister Lu at the prison, and that does not go too well for him. The dragon is extremely formidable, but ends up disappearing when Mister Lu is killed by Machine Head.

This was all orchestrated by Titan, whose family was being threatened by Lu in order to get Titan to bust out Paul. Paul tried to recruit Invincible to help him out, with the idea that the Order is much better when Titan was in charge than when these other killers were. Mark did not buy that, but does inadvertently helped him.

Meanwhile, Mark and Eve decide to start to take things a little slower. They had considered getting their own place, but Mark eventually decided to stay at home with his mom and Oliver. Oliver had been sneaking out of the house to go see friends in the night to skateboard and Mark and his mom were worried.

This episode did feel like a step back, but it was still entertaining and it did cover an area that had not been addressed for awhile now.

Spoilers

“Code Blues”

I have been up and down with this new prequel version of Dexter during its run on Amazon Prime. Leading up to the tenth episode, I had mixed emotions for this show. The tone had been all over the place and there were times when it felt as if the show wanted to be more comedic than it should have been.

Thankfully, I feel as if the finale of the season delivered a reasonably solid episode, in particular in connection with the kidnapping of Nicky. However, the show left a giant dangling plot in Dexter’s serial killer brother unresolved and feeling like a huge time bomb ready to go off. Will that ever be dealt with? Will there be another season of this version of Dexter? I’m not sure the answers to any of those questions, but looking just at this finale, I thought it was pretty good. (I guess Dexter deals with Brian in season one of the original series, which I did not remember.)

It did not hurt that most of the flashbacks were over and were just used to further the backstory of Brian, which was better than the stuff with Dexter’s birth mom.

The material with Captain Spencer was much better. I have to say that I was critical about the manner in which Dexter allowed Spencer to escape his table last episode. I thought that was an unnecessary risk. Of course, it worked out well, and Dexter was able to save Nicky from a watery grave after Spencer tried to drown the boy. Dexter was able to do it without revealing his identity to Nicky too. Win-Win.

He also was able to catch Spencer and kill him on the boat. Lots of blood involved there, which had to be a problematic plot hole.

Having Dexter, Harry and Deb dancing at the end of the episode was a fun way to show how positive everyone was feeling, even though a darkness lurked around a corner in Brian.

Overall, Dexter: original Sin finished strong, but perhaps not strong enough for me to dismiss the erratic tone taken by the series through the first two-thirds of the season. Some moments were very strong and engaging while other moments just did not work. All of the recasts were big hits though and the show definitely ended on a high note.

Spoilers

“You Were My Hero”

Episode four of the third season of Invincible was really good, if not split into two distinct parts.

I want to get this out of the way first. When this episode started to use a narrator, like a voice over guy for movie trailers, I HATED THAT! That was the worst. I thought the second half of the show was going to be absolutely brutal because of this horrid technique.

However, as soon as Alan found Battle Beast, the second half picked up dramatically. I am not a fan of Omni Man, but seeing how he has a soft spot for Alan was a cool thing and watching them battle against two Viltrumites was fun.

I really enjoyed the first part of the episode where Mark was taken into the future to confront the king who had enslaved earth. I was sure that the king was going to turn out to be Nolan, Mark’s father, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was the Immortal instead.

Then, with the Immortal basically crazy, the struggle Mark had to face with whether or not to do what the Immortal wanted, to kill him, was a major character beat. It reminded me somewhat of Superman in Man of Steel when he broke Zod’s neck. Mark had no real choice and had to do it (although ripping off Immortal’s head was a little more drastic than breaking his neck).

I hope the beginning of the episode does not turn out to be just a throw away bit in this series, because I liked this and Mark was battling inside on his choice. I wonder if this will be forgotten considering it led to Mark and Eve having sex for the first time.

With the exception of the voice over guy, this was my favorite episode of Invincible in awhile. I hope it isn’t just forgotten (as there were some intriguing things mentioned in the future that could be hints about what is coming).