Anna Pigeon 1.5 “The Rope”

Critter of the week is a very barky search and rescue dog.

Anna pisses off some dudebros. I mean, they deserve it…they really deserved to just be banned from the park.

For life.

In any case, she goes out on a solo hike, they ambush her, drug her, and leave her in a cave. From which she does, eventually rescue herself.

Just in time to bump into the search parties.

Protagonists tend to be self-rescuing.

I have heard the biggest criticism of this show is implausibility. But…it’s fun implausibility. And Anna is dealing with her issues head on. Nothing like being drugged and trapped in a cave to help with that suicidal ideation you have going on, right?

Cinema Disaster: Hornet

Hornet was released three days before Bumblebee and has the alternate title of Giant Morphing Robots.

There is a robot. That is named Hornet. For no reason. Because, yup, this is an Asylum titlesquat movie.

And it’s honestly sad. The premise…three tech genius kids build a robot and aliens invade, and the robot has to protect them? It’s solid. Implausible, but implausible in the manner of a trope, not bad writing.

They also do some creative things with monstercam, found footage passages, and screen splitting.

But because this is an Asylum titlesquat movie, they don’t manage to follow through on it at all.

The acting is okay from the kids, and Doug Burch leaves many tooth marks on the scenery as the fascistic, and possibly sadistic, federal agent. Eric Paul Erickson voices Hornet and he also seems to be having fun.

The lines “What is your primary directive?” “Saving you assholes” are the best bits of the movie.

The worst bits of the movie…the climactic sequence is a strobefest, to the point where I have to recommend photosensitive people avoid this movie. It’s not a quick scene you can glance away from, but a fairly extended sequence, and I probably missed stuff as I desperately tried to protect my eyes so I wouldn’t catch a migraine. Sigh.

And the “ending.” In air quotes because that wasn’t an ending. It was a stopping. Maybe sequel bait, maybe…who knows.

(There was only one robot. It was not giant…just large…and it did not morph, unless you count switching sides multiple times because everyone was trying to reprogram it).

Anna Pigeon 1.6 “There’s Always A Road”

Basically part two of “The Rope.” While “The Rope” dances with horror, “There’s Always A Road” really crosses the line into it. This episode is designed to get women to choose the bear (although the critter of the week is a herd of bison).

Anna goes back to the cave, but all evidence of her stay there is gone, including the body. Maybe somebody’s trying to get her to doubt her sanity. It’s not hard; her sanity is a little shaky to start with.

And it turns out that her friend, Bethany, is part of the entire mess. That’s really going to do something to somebody who already has such major trust issues.

There’s even a hint of the supernatural, although easy enough to dismiss.

Anna Pigeon 1.7 “The Three Mark Skweikis”

After discussing aliens, Anna and FBI guy are driving home and nearly take out a glowing blue guy a la Dr. Manhattan. Given this is a realistic show, there’s a logical explanation…he fell in some bioluminescent algae.

Critters of the week are a pack of wolves.

Mark Skweiki died in the park 20 years ago. Or did he? Blue Guy isn’t Mark (Mark’s wife walks right past him).

The cold case is resolved in a way that explains the other body in the park. And Blue Guy turns out to be a jerk.

Anna sleeps with Frederick, regrets it, and accepts Jesse’s declaration of love.

Even though it’s obvious to everyone but her who the right guy is. Just saying. I’m not a fan of love triangles, but this one does come with a side of Everyone Knows But Them, so I can get behind it.

Daredevil 2.10 “The Man in the Box”

There’s…a lot going on here, in fact I would say this episode gets more than a little bit cluttered.

Frank Castle is out on the street, and Matt knows to blame the Kingpin and now knows the Kingpin is basically running the prison.

DA Reyes is dead, murdered using Castle’s MO…but he’s denying it? Or perhaps what he’s denying is threatening her kid. Something the Punisher would, in fact, never do…or would he? Would he do it and not mean it in order to get Reyes rattled?

But Castle’s body count is going up, regardless of which things he did or didn’t do.

Stick sends some poor schmuck after Elektra. I guess he didn’t like him very much.

Oh, and Matt is now caught up in a full blown mix of Catholic guilt and Heroic Loner and won’t even visit Foggy in the hospital (he got shot).

The Hand (presumably) is using a bunch of kids and farming their blood for something…immortality serum? Poison? It’s not clear.

Either way, we’ve gotten real dark here.