Thunderbolts* (or, The New Avengers) is what you remember Marvel movies and shows being, back when it was a pretty sure thing that any given movie was going to be good, if not excellent. Somehow, the rhythms and plot progression that have now become standard work here. The comedy is funny. The action scenes are cool. The collection of very barebones characters doesn’t make the story flat or uninteresting.
In a world of jaded critics & fans, and collapsing franchises, this one actually delivers.
The SFB Scale cuts through the noise and answers the only question that really matters: Should you pay to see it, stream it, binge it, or skip it?
“The Past is The Past” is both an ending I’d want from a show, and way off from what I expected for this show specifically. Or any Marvel show, really.
I loved “Deep Trouble” in theory. I liked it in practice. There’s a difference between conceptually enjoying the decisions made and having the delivery be only okay.
“Karma’s a Glitch” has the pacing and progression of a movie, and I loved that about it. The series has been building up for so long that just having a bunch of classic superhero moments chained together was deeply satisfying.
Let me be clear. I hated three big things about “Pipelines.”
Maybe this is just because I’ve listened to a lot of Magnus, and am going off patterns, but the series does have a habit of outright stating something after it was possible to mostly have figured it out. And that’s what “Temporary Positions” feels like. It’s a clarifying episode for anyone who’s not been following this storyline as closely as someone like me.
“Repetitive Strain” is mostly only brought down from excellence by the statement not having enough time. I love that the episode keeps matters mostly focused on one plotline, while also progressing it, but I was intrigued and increasingly horrified—and then the story stopped.
“Slipping” takes the format of Protocol and pushes it to the absolute extreme. There’s implying a horror story through the medium of whatever technology or multimedia thing we’re exploring that episode, and then there’s burying it so deep in that framework that it feels like a twist when the shift happens.
“Transferal” picks back up a plotline that I had—admittedly—forgotten about. It hadn’t really been referenced since season one, and, thinking on it now, had seemed mostly handled. It’s possible there was a throwaway line where Celia was still dealing with being pulled back to the Archives universe—but I can’t recall it. Certainly, the narrative didn’t make a big enough deal to reinforce it.
“Back to Basic” is an odd episode to talk about. It’s not really an episode; it’s exposition. The statement is barely a statement. The conversations don’t feel like conversations. The whole point of the runtime is just to teach us some worldbuilding elements.
