Category: Super Recaps

Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 3 (Body Double)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

Riverdale and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros Television Distribution and The CW

Episode directed by Lee Toland Krieger

We’re back with another episode of The Way Too Young and the Restless!  When we last left things, Cheryl was FINALLY getting arrested for being the most OBVIOUSLY SUSPICIOUS PERON IMAGINABLE, but chances are that those charges aren’t gonna stick considering we’re only on the third chapter.  What mysteries will be uncovered once Cheryl tells us what REALLY happened on the Fourth of July?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with a recap of what happened at the end of the last episode which, as stated above, was Cheryl Blossom FINALLY being dragged away in handcuffs.  Why?  Well I could probably give you a laundry list of reasons, but SPECIFICALLY she’s being hauled in for questioning because her story about what happened to Jason on the Fourth of July has a few holes in it.  Namely ONE hole that ended up in Jason’s head!  Sheriff Keller (Kevin Keller’s dad played by Martin Cummins) begins to question her in Principal Weatherbee’s office, and we find out what REALLY happened that day, or at least the CURRENT version of the truth before the next big revelation upends everything we learn here.  Jason wanted to run away from home and fake his death.  He and Cheryl took the boat ACROSS the river and I guess Jason just wandered off into the woods with no bags and presumably very little cash (a dead man wouldn’t be using a credit card and a big withdrawal right before he disappeared would have been suspicious) while Cheryl waited around for someone to find her so she can tell the story about Jason drowning.  How she knew that Dilton and his scout troop (I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a scout leader in the books, but whatever) would JUST SO HAPPEN to pass by is still a mystery, but maybe that’s the NEXT big revelation.  While the two of them were sharing their tearful goodbye, they heard the gunshot.  You know; the one that Archie and Miss Grundy heard?  Yeah, they heard it too which means that we now know two places were the gun COULDN’T have been fired from.  Now that’s a decent chunk of information to build off of and presumably this take Cheryl off the hook for the murder.  Why the sheriff didn’t ask Cheryl WHY Jason wanted to run away is beyond me, but whatever.  We’ve still got a whole season of shows to fill up, so we can’t be giving away all the surprises NOW!

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“That whole thing where I said I was guilty?  Yeah… not really what I meant.  Still made for a good cliffhanger though, right?”

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Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 2 (A Touch of Evil)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

Riverdale and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros Television Distribution and The CW

Episode directed by Lee Toland Krieger

We’re back with another episode of Riverdale: The Next Generation!  Now the first episode didn’t give me a WHOLE lot of hope that this is gonna resemble the original comics in the least, and adding some questionable subplots and story decision on top of that only lessened my enthusiasm.  Still, Betty and Veronica are great and Cheryl is fun if completely over the top and goofy, so there are definitely some things to like about it and room to grow as the series goes along.  Does this episode build off of what was good in the first one, or are we already getting the best that this series can offer?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Jughead Marlowe as he narrates to us the events of the last episode with that same pulpy film noir style that continues unabated from the last episode.  Raymond Chandler, this guy is not, BUT it at least adds SOMETHING to the standard PREVIOUSLY ON recap that you see in front of shows like this and we also get a few details on what has happened since last time.  What DID happen last time anyway?  Well it turns out that the body of Cheryl Blossom’s brother Jason finally washed up on shore but it has a bullet hole right between the eyes which points to MURDER instead of merely an accident which is what Cheryl has been telling the police this whole time (the boat tipped over and he drowned) so I’m sure they’ll be wanting another chat with her sometime soon.  Of course, there’ still one piece of the puzzle that the cops aren’t aware of yet and that’s the secret Archie is hiding from everyone.  On The Fourth of July which is the day that Jason went missing, he was at the river where Cheryl and Jason were, and while he didn’t SEE anything, he definitely heard a gunshot.  However, he hasn’t told anyone yet because he was with his WAY older music teacher Miss Grundy (you can read my recap of episode one if you want my thoughts on THAT situation) and she’s convinced him that he can’t go the police.  Of course, finding out that Jason bid farewell to this cruel world with the help of Smith & Wesson isn’t making it any easier to keep this secret from eating away at his hunky insides.

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“All this deception is making my abs sad…”

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Super Recaps: Riverdale Chapter 1 (The River’s Edge)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 4 Comments

Riverdale and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros Television Distribution and The CW

Episode directed by Lee Toland Krieger

The day has finally arrived for Archie and the gang to get their grim and gritty reboot that I’m SURE at least one person out there was asking for!  Alright, the trailers didn’t give me a whole lot of hope for this series considering it looked more like The Vampire Diaries than its source material, but adapting ANYTHING from one medium to another does require there to be some changes, so I’m more than willing to give this a shot even if my expectations have been lowered based on what I’ve seen so far.  Does the pilot manage to assuage my fears and deliver on the legacy that these characters have, or is this a subpar teen drama with Archie branding splattered all over it?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with narration by Jughead (Cole Sprouse) that reminds me more of an embittered noir detective rather than the easy going burger chomping bro who inexplicably wears a crown, but at least it’s better than whatever the hell they were doing with him in the LAST live action adaptation.  At the very least, he does provide us a bit of backstory as the all the interesting stuff seemed to have already happened before we go here.  So what DID happen?  Back on The Fourth of July, the Blossom twins, Cheryl and Jason (Madelain Petsch and Trevor Stines) pulled a James Franco and went off to do something dangerous without letting anyone know and apparently without any cellphones.  The dangerous act in question turns out to be an early morning boat ride on the Riverdale River (I assume that’s what it’s called) where they don’t even bother to bring safety equipment or even life jackets.  Then again, I assume those would be ripped off right away ALONG WITH ALL THEIR CLOTHES.

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“Did we really need to get a boat to do this?  We could have just driven to a motel or something.”

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Super Recaps: Archie: Return to Riverdale

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Archie: Return to Riverdale and all the images you see in this recap are owned by NBC

Directed by Dick Lowry

I was given my first Archie Double Digest by my grandma as reading material for a field trip I was taking in Middle School.  Seems apropos considering I had discovered Calvin and Hobbes on her book shelf, and sure enough I was hooked right away.  Now this was ALSO a time in my life where I didn’t have disposable income, so I couldn’t get as many books as I had hoped, but those characters are still endearing to me to this day and I’ll try to catch up on them every once in a while.  A somewhat foolish endeavor considering how dense the continuity is and the breadth of the content there is out there, but it’s certainly better than trying to figure out what the hell is going on with Marvel or DC at any given time.  Now were on the cusp of the CW series Riverdale which I will absolutely be recapping even if the trailers haven’t inspired a whole lot of hope for me.  Seriously, WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE IT’S GONNA BE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, AND WHY IS MISS GRUNDY A HOT TWENTY FIVE YEAR OLD MUSIC TEACHER!?  That’s all for another day however, as I have something else to show you right now!  Did you know that the CW series isn’t the first time that Archie has been in Live Action!?  In 1990, NBC premiered a Made for TV movie called Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again which was shortened to Archie: Return to Riverdale when it was released on VHS.  I just so happened to find this thing in a Goodwill about a month ago, as if by fate.  Like this was in my destiny or something!  Is it any good?  Well let’s find out!!

The movie takes place fifteen years after the events of… let’s say MOST of the books.  For the most part, Archie is a high school student , and while there are plenty of books out there about him AFTER high school such as the reboot of Life with Archie also known as Archie: The Married Life, if you go to the grocery store and pick up a Double Digest, the dude is gonna be racing to his math class and drinking milkshakes at Pop’s Diner.   We basically get a montage of the three main characters in this, Veronica Lodge (Karen Kopis), Betty Cooper (Lauren Holly), and of course Archie Andrews (Christopher Rich), who are all preparing for their fifteen year high school reunion; the former two by the way are PARTICULARLY excited to see the latter despite Betty already having a boyfriend and Veronica having been recently divorced.  Could you blame them?  I mean, look at the guy!

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How long did it take you to get that dye job?  Ah hell, I can’t really blame him for wanting to look his best when he’s got two sweethearts waiting for him, now can I?

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Super Recaps: Dragon Ball Super Episode 2 (To the Promised Resort! Vegeta Takes a Family Trip?)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

Dragon Ball Super and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Funimation

We’re back with another episode of Dragon Ball Z-2: Electric Boogaloo!  While the first episode didn’t quite get the ball rolling as much as it should have, there’s still a HUGE amount of potential for where this series can go.  Do they pick up the pace with episode two, or is it gonna take a bit longer for this series to find its groove?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with a recap of Beerus’s horrible destruction in the last episode (he may have only destroyed half of a planet but that doesn’t bode well for the OTHER half!) and Goku going off to visit King Kai now that he’s free from his familial responsibilities.  That doesn’t matter though because it’s VACATION TIME MOTHER FUCKERS!!  The Briefs family, which consists of Bulma, Vegeta, and Trunks, are heading out to a tropical resort to spend some quality time together and to hopefully get Vegeta to drop his scowl for maybe five seconds.  Too bad they couldn’t convince him to wear his pink shirt, though he probably had that destroyed several years ago.

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“How you doing up there buddy?”     “THE PRINCE OF ALL SAIYANS DOES NOT NEED YOUR CONCERN!!”     “Love you too dear!”

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Super Recaps: Dragon Ball Super Episode 1 (A Peacetime Reward: Who Gets the 100,000,000 Zeni?)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

Dragon Ball Super and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Funimation

As many of you might know, Dragon Ball Z was a HUGE part of my life and is one of the most important series to ever exist; not just for me but for an entire generation who grew up with these characters and what they represented.  Goku as the Super Man for the modern era who was always there when we needed him and has the biggest heart imaginable.  Vegeta as the manifestation of our own sense of pride and anger; reforming as the series goes on and always being taught the folly of his ways.  Gohan trying to live up to the legacy of his father and trying to find his place in the world while having more than enough potential to be whatever he wanted if he could just open up and tap into it.  These stories resonated with a lot of people, and while it wasn’t always great (it started fading fast during the Buu saga), it was always important, so bringing back an official series after so long is a pretty big deal; especially now that it’s back in the US with an official Funimation dub for old fans and new fans alike (though I’m PRETTY sure most who are gonna see this are in the former category) to enjoy the way we enjoyed DBZ back in the day.  First though, a mea culpa.  I had every intention of reviewing this series as it was originally coming out with the subs, but it became clear pretty quickly that I simply didn’t have enough time to devote a recap series of that in anything resembling a timely fashion, so I decided to wait until the dub was released and do a recap of that instead.  Seems appropriate though considering I’ve never known this series outside of the dubbed version, so why would I start watching the Japanese version now?  Sure… that will work as an excuse.  ANYWAY!  Does the return of Dragon Ball usher in a new era of anime once again ruled by Toriyama’s iconic series, or is this a desperate move to squeeze a few more dollars out of a dying cash cow?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with the new opening sequence which was specifically done for the English dub and as far as I can tell is just a cover of the song from the Japanese version of Super.  It’s honestly not that big of a deal for me considering that the openings and closings were never something that connected with me in the original series either like similar shows I love from that era (Yu Yu Hakusho, Case Closed, etc), so I’m not gonna knock points off just yet.  It looks cool at least featuring plenty of well-choreographed action, though I’m annoyed that we’re STILL going with the Chi-Chi as a nagging wife jokes in 2017… or whenever the hell this came out.  It couldn’t have been any earlier than 2015, right?  The opening also confirms we’re not picking up pretty much right after the Buu Saga, give or take a few years as Gohan looks like he’s out of high school but Goten is still rather young.

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THEY’RE BACK!  THEY’RE FINALLY BACK!!  NO, I’M NOT GETTING OLD!!

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Super Recaps: My Little Pony season 6 (To Where and Back Again) Season Six Finale!!

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Hasbro.

Episode directed by Denny Lu and Tim Stuby

We’re back for the last time this year as we’ve reached the end of My Little Pony’s sixth season!  It’s not always the best show out there as episodes like The Cart Before the Ponies or 28 Pranks Later have clearly proven, but it’s always deflating to get to the end of a season knowing that it’ll be quite some time before they pick things back up again; especially considering they just released the latest Equestria Girls movie instead of waiting a bit and using it to tide us over between now and season seven.  WHAT DO I HAVE LEFT!?  Oh wait, they’re still making the comics.  That should work!  Anyway, does this episode cap off the sixth season on a high note and leave us wanting more, or will we begging for it to be over as soon as possible?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins at Twilight’s Doom Fortress where the three primary residents, Twilight, Starlight, and the slave boy, are moving books into the basement because there’s not enough room left upstairs.  Wait, does her castle actually double as a library or is this her personal hoard?  I mean, it’s not like the small town of Ponyville was swimming in libraries BEFORE Tirek torched Golden Oaks to the ground, so you’d think Twilight AT LEAST owes that much to the city.  Oh I’m sorry, were Twilight and Starlight talking about friendship or something?  I wasn’t payment that much attention and neither was Spike for that matter who wanders off from the conversation to look out the window.  A wise move considering there’s something heading right for them at terminal velocity.

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“DON’T YOU DARE SMASH INTO THOSE BOOKS!”     “Oh I’m smashing those books!”     “DAMN IT!”

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Super Recaps: Equestria Girls: Legend of Everfree

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

Equestria Girls: Legend of Everfree and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Hasbro

Directed by Ishi Rudell

Well what do we have here?  It looks like another Spin-Offs Are Magic movie has been graciously provided by Hasbro who’s always looking to find new ways to milk it’s biggest cash cow that isn’t being helmed by Michael Bay!  Now what’s interesting about this Equestria Girls movie though is that we’ve finally established Human Twilight as an entity in this world and is now a part of our parallel universe crew which, coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) now has seven members  at about the same time as Pony Twilight got a new member for her team!  It also means that this franchise doesn’t have tie itself to the school to accommodate Pony Twilight who still needs to enter in and out of this dimension through the statue portal thingy which gives this a chance to stand on its own as an independent world rather than an extension of Equestria.  Does this series manage to throw off the shackles of its spin-off roots in spectacular fashion, or will removing the training wheels only lead to pain and an uncertain future for these characters?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Human Twilight who is tossing and turning in her sleep from some sort of nightmare, and while we don’t get a glimpse of what she’s dreaming about, we DO at least get a glimpse of her room which has some interesting details all on its own.

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I’m guessing Spike was the one who insisted a picture of him be framed and hung on the wall.

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Super Recaps: My Little Pony season 6 (Where the Apple Lies)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Hasbro.

Episode directed by Denny Lu and Tim Stuby

We’re back with another episode of You Don’t Know Applejack!  For the first time in a while, it looks like we’re gonna get a flashback episode to the halcyon days of yore for at least one of our regulars, and maybe get some insight into how they became the pony they are now!  Will this trip down memory lane be a breath of fresh air as we get to see characters at a different point in their lives, or will we get more of the same despite the chance to change things up a bit?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with The Apple Family providing Filthy Rich with his latest delivery of Zap Apple Jam to sell in his store.  I’m surprised that the CEO has to personally transport the goods himself, but maybe there’s something more to this transaction than what we’re seeing…

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“Four cases of Zap Apple Jam, and two cases of… apples.”     “Are the… apples pure?”     “Of course they are!  We don’t cut our apples with bullshit!  You should know better by now!”     “Alright!  Be cool!”

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Super Recaps: My Little Pony season 6 (P.P.O.V. – Pony Point of View)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Hasbro.

Episode directed by Denny Lu and Tim Stuby

We’re back with another episode of Ponies of the Caribbean!  The post mid-season break episodes have had their ups and downs, but it seems to have leveled off somewhat with some really solid outings like Dungeons and Discords and The Times They are a Changeling, but not we also haven’t really gotten an all-time classic since Stranger than Fan Fiction.  Sadly, that probably won’t change considering we’ve got a CMC episode, a Cutie Map episode, and a Starlight episode all in a row which didn’t bring much energy back to the series, and now we’ll probably be getting less exciting episodes to build up towards the season finale.  Does this episode subvert those expectations and give us something memorable?  After all, Stranger than Fan Fiction wasn’t exactly tied to one of the bigger plot lines in the series, and that one turned out great!  Maybe this one will too!  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Twilight eagerly heading to the train station with a less eager Spike in tow.  The reason for the jubilation seems to be that Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity went together on a boat trip and are now on their way back home; presumably filled with stories of high flying adventure and pirate raids!  I bet they can’t WAIT to tell her all about it!!

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“You ever have to carve a pony’s eye out with a fishing hook?”     “What surprised ME was how good she was at it!”     “YOU WANNA GO RIGHT NOW!?”     “Both of you SHUT UP, or else I’ll do to you what that whale did to Captain Blue Mane!”     “Don’t even joke about that…”

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