SPOILER WARNING FOR THOSE THAT HAVE NOT SEEN THE EPISODE
My apologies for the late review, I had some stuff come up this week that held me up. I should be back on track next week!
Oh boy was this a big episode though! I must admit, I was not prepared for how dark this show was willing to get. The last thing I expected when watching this episode was to feel completely depressed by it. Even though I appreciate it from a storytelling perspective, hopefully next week we'll get little hope injected back into the mix.
The episode was, as the title suggests, centered on the classic JSA villain Icicle (who's also showed up on The Flash, with a different actor). You really got a sense of what makes him tick here, and the creative team did a great job of letting us know his backstory and why he's doing what he's doing. Though it's unclear what exactly his "mission" is, we know the death of his wife served as a big catalyst for it. For most of the episode, I was starting to get a little "hate to love" vibe from him, as his motives seemed sympathetic. The writers played a good trick though, and said "You thought this guy was sorta okay? THINK AGAIN!". The death of The Wizard's son was a shockingly dark turn and lets us all know that this show isn't all sunshine.
The fight itself was very exciting, as we got to see the very first coordinated team-up between Courtney and Pat. I'm glad each episode so far has given us at least a little action because I was originally afraid that the series would hold back on it most of the time. The effects are still top-notch and the stakes have been felt in every battle, so I hope the show keeps it up.
I was also really surprised that The Wizard died so early. Maybe the writers have something up their sleeve for later, but he seemed pretty dead to me. Just more proof that the show isn't holding back its punches. And how about those old folks? Are they Jordan's parents or what? They're all apparently Russian too, which also makes the mystery deepen even further. Just what is the ISA planning here that they believe justifies the death of William and his son? It's also evident by this point that the remaining kids of theirs have something to do with it as well.
The episode did manage to end on a more positive note though, with Pat showing Courtney the JSA's HQ and her deciding to go off and create a new JSA. I'm very curious to see how the show approaches this because it could start to feel very coincidental and/or formulaic real fast if they're going the "one recruit per week" route. We'll have to wait and see how they handle it.
Overall though, this was a fantastic episode. Awesome action, solid acting, terrifying villains, and plenty of big twists and reveals made it by far and large the best of the series so far. What did you guys think? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
