Week 112: Havoc in the Hidden Land, ...And Finally: Black Bolt

Havoc in the Hidden Land: After the scene where Thor calls Hulk "the stupid Avenger" in Thor: Ragnarok, Kelly and I started calling this show "The Stupid Avengers."

Ok, ok, I'll lay off. That was just mean. This show has improved considerably with the Inhumans reunited and interacting, so much so that I question the wisdom of its choice to break them up in Hawaii for most of the series. I assume that the point was for the audience to get to know each character individually, but Karnak and Gorgon are way more interesting when put together, and Medusa confronting Black Bolt is easily the best material here.

In fact, Medusa has somehow improbably become my favorite character (or least disliked, more accurately). Her openly questioning Black Bolt's judgment in front of others would seem worse if Kelly and I hadn't just had a dinner conversation about the inherent danger of sycophancy in dictatorships and how good leaders should surround themselves with people who challenge their decisions so that the best ideas win. Besides, the dialogue indicates that Medusa never would have talked this way before Hawaii, which I accept. It helps that nearly every point that she makes is valid. Black Bolt continuing the lie about Pickle Joe's survival plan after the coup occurred was a dick move (and why send Gorgon on an impossible mission in the first place?), but Medusa asking if her head being shaved was part of his plan was also out of line, and that's especially true now that we more fully appreciate how important each person's powers are to Inhuman society and how the Maximus's cruel act wasn't just your typical defeminizing, disfiguring villainy. These scenes really demonstrate the weakness of positioning the mute Black Bolt as a central protagonist; he can't keep up with the drama of the conversation and the show suffers for it. Maybe his muteness works better with the time-distorting pace of comic book panels, but in live action it's problematic. That said, my favorite part of their arguing was when Pickle Joe found himself between them and quickly turned around to look at another shelf in the bunker; that was the fastest "huh what's that over there" in history.

Speaking of the big green pickle, he disappeared for so much of the hour that I was starting to question why the show brought him back if it wasn't going to do anything with him, until he was finally featured in some combat scenes close to the end. I guessed that his performer, Mike Moh, was more of a stuntman hired for his fighting ability rather than an actor, but I checked IMDb and his credits are almost entirely acting rather than doing stunts, although his roles are definitely action-oriented. (He was Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.)

And he's not the only one with a cool fight: Karnak leaping through the air while the camera spins nearly in a circle is a great action moment. Even without his full powers, he's the most action-ready character, and the show makes good use of this. (If you haven't seen the Christian Bale movie Equilibrium, which is based on gun kata or "gun-fu" which is similar to Karnak, it's not bad.)

I can't remember if I asked this before: How did no one else but Medusa learn Black Bolt's hand gestures? They're family, and they seem to spend most of their time together, and it's been decades now since the accident. Maybe Gorgon is too dumb and Crystal too lazy, but Karnak would have learned them for sure, and you'd expect Maximus and Pickle Joe to get them by now.

I like Maximus's villainy in this hour. He's smug in the parley scene, but I would be too if I was betraying the royal family, because come on, their plan really is dumb. It's a relief to see him stop pretending that this revolution is about some kind of cause and just being liberated for once, although I'd rather see a little more unhinged anger in the actor's performance. I'm still confused; clearly his goal was super-powers, but does he also want the throne or not? Because the throne seems even more valuable and desirable. It sure seems to me that he could have triggered second Terrigenesis himself in secret with Evan Declan's research and someone to load the crystals into the chamber; he doesn't seem like someone who would wait around for official permission. Going to all of this trouble over seven episodes just for powers seems like taking the long way around just for the story's sake. (5/10)

...And Finally: Black Bolt: Wow! A twist ending: The show got good in the end! I was not prepared for this. There were a few issues that I'll discuss in a moment, but on the whole this was quite entertaining and satisfying as a conclusion, with thoughtful explorations of the implications of the characters' actions on top of some sweet action scenes. (How fun was that Matrix-inspired hallway fight with Pickle Joe?) The final conversations between some characters, like Medusa afraid she'll lose her husband again and Black Bolt's heartbroken farewell to his brother, were moving. I was also not expecting Maximus's revelation of how he had caused his parents' murder; it seems like most of the tragedy and suffering in this series could have been avoided if any of the 1400 people in Attilan had been a psychotherapist. Even the CGI collapse of Attilan when the dome failed was impressive. If only the whole series had been as good as this final hour!

When Declan was killed inside the Terrigenesis chamber, did the spinning remind anyone else of the spinning camera in Karnak's fight against Auron in the previous episode? This show doesn't have a movie-grade budget for its action, but a little playfulness with the camera goes a long way.

I appreciate the episode's hints about Kree being the Inhumans' true enemy. Subtlety is not a talent that the series had demonstrated much until now. But I still don't understand why the Kree-resistant underground bunker has a door handle on the outside, as Kelly pointed out. And I don't get what NASA would or could do for 1400 Inhumans, especially given governmental hostility to Inhumans at this point in the MCU, but I trust that the ending is vague merely to keep open their options for future stories.

Poor Eldrac. Not only did he live a lifetime in pain after Terrigenesis turned him into a fucking rock wall, and not only was he forced into servitude when it was discovered that he could teleport people to Earth (how in the world did that happen?), but now, in Attilan's final moments, no one even mentions any possibility of evacuating him too. What, Lockjaw and Crystal can't zap in, put a hand on him, and fly out again? Inhuman culture opposed second Terrigenesis, but it should have invented some kind of process of reverse Terrigenesis for poor bastards like Eldrac. (I assume that this would also be forbidden, given that Terrigenesis is the entire foundation of the society. Refusing Terrigenesis must also be forbidden, which you'd think a lot of people would attempt if bad luck resulted in a lifetime of slave duty in the mines.)

Ok, so one thing here makes sense at least: Maximus learned Black Bolt's sign language a long time ago. Why he kept it secret for so long, when he's willing to reveal it now at the drop of a hat, smacks of narrative convenience, but fine, it's not as dumb as Medusa alone understanding the gestures.

Where was Gorgon going when the city was collapsing? Karnak confronting him and admitting how much he loves his cousin and promising to help him die if that's what he really wants is a knockout scene dramatically (way to go Ken Leung!), but it's very unclear whether Gorgon was running into the building to die with Attilan or running into the building to fight Maximus or just running into the building because he needed to pee.

What do you make of Black Bolt's decision to trap Maximus in the bunker permanently? The real purpose, to leave the villain alive for possible future seasons, is clear, but Black Bolt's motivation is not. He tells Medusa that he cannot "leave him unchecked" and goes off to ensure that he does no further damage, which seems unnecessary since the city is already evacuated and collapsing, but then he traps him in the bunker. So instead of letting him die any minute now in the collapsing city, Black Bolt seals him alive in a bunker with a lifetime's worth of supplies as punishment, knowing that anyone who gets to Lockjaw could rescue him and unleash him again on Earth despite his threats of genocide? This just doesn't add up for me at all. I assume that Black Bolt changed his mind about what to do with Maximus after his monologue (the punch in the face was a satisfying bit of punctuation at the end of that scene), but this outcome just doesn't make sense given the imminent certain death facing both men. For example, did Black Bolt really carry Maximus's unconscious body through underground tunnels for half an hour (judging from how long it took to walk them in the last episode)? I don't want to complain too much about an episode that I mostly liked, but man, I can just tell that I'm going to remember Maximus's doom and Black Bolt collapsing the building on him for a long time whenever I think back to this series, and the illogic of it is going to stick with me too. Am I wrong about any of this? (7/10)

My overall series reaction after seeing it for the first time: Despite the sharp improvement in quality at the end, this deserves its reputation as the worst MCU series, certainly out of the candidates extant at this point in time. (I'm disqualifying the execrable Slingshot as a short web series, which was worse due to moral bankruptcy. It doesn't seem fair to compare as equals a series whose entire runtime is shorter than a single episode of this one.) It's an ugly series for being so expensive, its dialogue is almost entirely devoid of wit, its characters are all repellent assholes, and it has frighteningly out-of-touch values. That the heroes technically make the right call in ending their society's oppressive caste system is undermined by the fact that they had no real choice in the matter due to the villain's actions, and by the other fact that they spend most of the series still trying to uphold the social hierarchy; even in the end, they cling to absolute rules around Terrigenesis without acknowledging how these rules further enforce the injustice around them. There was a stretch in the middle where I really hated this series, and while I'm pleased that it got better before the end, I'm still really glad that it won't ever come back. I don't think I could take another hour of Gorgon's idiocy or Crystal's fecklessness or Maximus's smugness. What did you think of the series?

overall series rating: 3/10 (It sucked.)
best of series: "...And Finally: Black Bolt"
worst of series: "Make Way for… Medusa"