Howdy folks it is Allen from the rural midwest ready to talk about the TV shows of the week. This week was chock full of good stuff so lets get going. BTW I will have a little bonus TV show at the end. As always, there are spoilers so read at your own risk.

The Walking Dead – I never trusted the preacher and that was without what I knew from the comic. This community has a lot of the amenities and I was wondering how they were doing it and then they explained it. They are off to get the parts needed to keep the system working (don’t ask me, I’m an engineer and it confused me) and they take Eugene to help. What they find is a warehouse full of walkers (does anybody but me wonder why they tend to congregate in buildings?). Scene change to Abraham working on a construction crew, obviously not happy. Cue the guy needing a bio break (sending a fax to Cleveland, I laughed out loud). What he finds is a bunch of walkers (a personal fear of mine, I’ve had that dream). The workers run off leaving Francine and Abraham steps up, grabs a flail (a flail?), and with a smile on his face kicks some walker butt. Francine then expresses her displeasure with being abandoned and Abraham takes charge. Meanwhile everything goes pear shaped for the group at the warehouse with Glenn, Noah, and a guy I dislike intensely trapped by walkers. Lo and behold Eugene gets some gumption and distracts some of the walkers. Douche Nozzle runs off leaving Glenn and Noah behind and getting Noah killed. Everyone in my room watching the show very vehemently expressed their displeasure with the Douche Nozzle (which surprised me because I didn’t know some of the people in the room knew the words they were shouting). Carol continues to give me the creeps and is rapidly rising to be one of my favorite characters. The preacher tries to sell out the rest of the group putting him just behind Douche Nozzle on my list of disliked characters. This community has never had to actually deal with the world and they are not ready for it.

Flash – I have never made any bones about how big of a Flash fanboy I am and this episode paid off for me in spades. I cannot talk about everything that I geeked out about or we will still be here next week, so here we go.  I dislike the talking at the beginning of the episodes but I hope after the first season they will just stop. So now the real Weather Wizard finally shows up, the Rogues are coming together. That is the most awkward bowling scene in a TV show I have ever seen. Barry sees himself and I thought time travel (more on that later). Cisco saying Weather Wizard and commenting he had been saving that since week one (I laughed out loud!). How fast did Barry have to move to save Joe from the lightning that was already in the car? In the comics the Weather Wizard had a wand to control the weather, in the show it will shut him down, well done sir. What is it about police in TV shows taking things personal and going rogue, it gets old. Now we are getting to the good parts. Cisco gets suspicious and asks Kaitlin to keep Welles busy. Cisco finds some disturbing things and Welles leaves Kaitlin and his wheelchair behind (so he is abandoning his pretense or he is going to come back and kill her). Welles shows up to Cisco and tells him he is Eobard Thayne (Reverse Flash!!!!!!). He also uses a couple of old Flash tricks like super speed afterimage and speed mirage (oh joys of young Allen reading Flash). Reverse Flash then kills Cisco after he notes that he was like the son he never had (jeez I’m glad he wasn’t angry with him). Back note now, this explains why he killed all of the police but Joe and Eddie. He needed Joe for Barry and Eddie is a distant ancestor. So Weather Wizard starts a tidal wave and Barry tries to create a barrier to stop it and he goes back in time to essentially the start of the episode. Okay, digression, so Professor Zoom goes back in time to kill Barry, runs into Barry and kills his mom instead and gets stuck in the past. Meanwhile, Barry, one assumes, will go back in time to fight Professor Zoom and end up saving himself. That is a predestination paradox that caused both events to happen. This is why time travel makes my head hurt. I loved this episode and I can’t wait to see how they handle next week.

Marvel: Agents of SHIELD – So last week I posited that AoS episodes were driven by the villains. I feel this week vindicated me, at least for me. Kyle MacLachlan is a perfect villain, he does over the top like no one else. Bat Guano Crazy is a phrase I’m trying to figure out how to use at work. May is my favorite character and I love Mockingbird! May’s ex-husband looked familiar but I couldn’t figure it out. Turning in my geek card, if any of the bad guys are comic characters I didn’t get it. There was a great showdown with the team and with the baddies. I’ve learned you leave May alone. There is another SHIELD? Sorry folks, my notes for this episode are sporadic, I have to admit I’m struggling with this show. I will work on getting better.

Arrow – Ras-Ah-Ghul is now a presence on the show. The actor does a great job of creating presence on the show. The character has always been one of my favorites and it is coming through. He is a leader, the man has lived a long time, he understands how things work. I enjoyed seeing Nyssa kick everyone’s butt. Does anyone else get a little burn when they rename characters. Admittedly these are Batman villains but she is Talia to me. Ras is starting to lose his longevity! So does that settle how to pronounce the name when the character pronounces it? Ras plays the long game! Okay the flash backs are getting old. Team Arrow is shaping up and starting to mesh. Arsenal (oh yeah baby!). I could watch Paul Blackthorne read a phone book, wow! Ray Palmer is also cool. I’m too old to like belly shirts but I do. Wow, parent issues, thank Grul mine are okay (my kids, my parent issues are my own). And I could watch John Barrowman read a phone book too. Mmmm Paul and John, excuse me, now I’m back. To paraphrase what I wrote in the Flash section, don’t mess with Ras! Diggle is awesome, if you don’t get that you aren’t watching the show. Okay, buy my evil dad some soup is my new band name! Flashbacks still getting old. Father daughter moments always gets me, welcome to parenthood. Nyssa and the Arrow team! Did anyone else get excited by seeing the Arrow team working together. I just got the not waiting around for a thank you comment. Felicity and Ollie, so cute. Okay add Stephen Amell to the above. So I wrote Shado in my notes and now I realize why, because I have no freaking idea! Nyssa and Laurel getting dinner, interesting. Roy and Thea, come on guys. And Ras at the end, what is his game, is he lying?

Grimm – Okay to start with I can’t pronounce or spell these words, if you are going to give me grief about it, ask me to pronounce English words. I have a friend at work who is middle European by ancestry and spent several years in Germany so he helps. Lets jump in, Juliette is a Hexenbeist and reveals it to Nick, who naturally, freaks out. Nick is also feeling a little bad because it is his fault, all of it, watch the flashbacks. I got the Peter Cottontail reference, sometimes this show is a little heavy handed. And why does the foot stay wolged (spelling again) when he cuts it off, all of the rest of the Wessen turn back? Wu is rapidly becoming my favorite character, his dry humor is awesome. I just love the use of the word fecund, another thing I need to work in at work. If I haven’t made it clear, I hate Adalind, she is the worst of the people I’ve dealt with in my life who feel they are entitled. Wessen have fertility doctors, makes sense just didn’t follow that to the logical conclusion. When Rosalee and Monroe volge and Monroe says “No you don’t” and then Rosalee punches his lights out I cheered. That is not how you sharpen an axe, I own a lot of sharp instruments and I know how it works. I admit that Nick did not handle finding about Juliette very well, but she pulled a crappy trick too. Given the Grimm’s history (and Nick’s) with the Hexen, that was a very passive aggressive take (and I know that). If Adalind is pregnant with Nick’s child there are going to be a lot of pissed people.

Constantine – I’m sorry until I hear more, not much to say.

Okay, little bonus discussion. I watched IZombie last week and very much enjoyed it. I find the idea interesting and the dialogue reminds (reminds no snide comments) of Joss Whedon work. I’m going to keep watching it and it move into the rotation.

I’ve decided I need to do a better job of watching and discussing my shows. Up til now I’ve been making notes during the show but “OMFG !!!” is not terribly helpful when I go to discuss it. So the plan point forward is that I will be watching these shows on streaming so I can make a coherent point. I will lose a little bit of the spontaneity that I was hoping for with some more coherent content. As always, suggestions are always welcome.

I’m Allen from the rural depths of the midwest signing out.