The big TV thing of May 2019 was of course, the much maligned finale for Game of Thrones. I’ve written about that separately here.
Most of the US TV series also ended their runs in May. Arrowverse show seasons were littered with poor writing as usual. I rank the seasons in this order:
- best is Legends of Tomorrow season 4. The reason Legends is the best is that they’re not afraid to be outrageous. My favorite moment was from before the midseason break, Puppets of Tomorrow!
- second best is Supergirl season 4. I don’t like that Supergirl always felt very preachy about modern-day issues like feminism and diversity and immigration, and this season amped that up a lot, but I still enjoyed it because (a) Lex Luthor was great; and (b) they adapted a couple of my favorite DC Superman storylines, namely Manchester Black and the Elite and Red Son (Red Daughter in this case).
- third best is Flash season 5. Cicada was a terrible villain and the rules of when and how the dagger works were just screwy, but I’m glad Eobard gets to come back in the ending (though I still don’t know why he has Wells’ face)
- last is Arrow season 7, just poor all-around writing, including an episode where Roy Harper flat out murders two innocents and everyone else on Team Arrow is like “Huh, okay, we’ll cover this up so the police don’t find out”, and a poorly explained road to Star City’s future. The season finale tellss us that Oliver dies during the upcoming Crisis of Infinite Earths. Arrow had a good run, but a few of the seasons were really week. It didn’t get as many seasons as Smallville did, but it has a legacy of its own (and arguably Smallville lasted a couple of seasons too long as well). More on this when Arrow’s abbreviated eighth and final season finishes later this year.
Despite all my complaints, I’m still looking forward to this year’s Crisis crossover!
Speaking of DC TV series, Gotham also ended its 5-season run, and although the show diverges significantly from the traditional Batman mythos, I still liked it. It wasn’t spectacular or anything, but there were some nice portrayals of many Batman characters and events. We never get to see Bruce don the cape and cowl, although it is heavily foreshadowed in the last episode.
The Big Bang Theory also had its series finale, and I liked it. Overall as a series it had its flaws, and at many times promoted smart-shaming and nerd stereotypes, but its a sitcom, so I don’t take it too seriously. I think the ending of Sheldon getting his nobel prize (with Amy) and finally acknowledging how difficult he has been as a friend is an appropriate ending for the series.
In my attempt to watch/read more manga/anime again, I started watching Boku no Hero Academia on Netflix a few months ago, but only got two episodes in. This month I finally binged the rest of the anime and for good measure caught up with the manga as well. This series feels like some cross of One Punch Man (for the superpowers and the modern society) and Naruto (for the kids being supervised by adults), except I’d say the depth of the lore so far is not that much, more OPM than Naruto. Still a fairly enjoyable read/watch, since I usually enjoy shonen manga/anime, and it got me thinking that Marvel should make a shonen version of an X-Men comic someday.
Not much movies-wise this month, though I did do a rewatch of Winter Soldier the other day, mostly because I had watched some videos ranking the MCU movies now that Endgame is done. Winter Soldier was always in my #1 slot, and the rewatch basically affirmed that. I had only meant to watch a little bit before going off to do something else, but the pacing of the movie was so great I just ended up watching it to the end. I think the themes of freedom vs security also really resonate with the liberal in me.
That’s it for this month! Next month I’ll be travelling, so who knows what I’ll be able to watch! I’ll have access to US Netflix!
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