VIDEO: Birds of Prey “Prey for the Hunter”

by · February 20, 2014

In New Gotham, metahumans are being killed by their own powers, and it turns out to be the work of a self-hating metahuman serial killer. This is the point where it all goes wrong, and we start to see Birds of Prey for what it really is: the worst.

Scroll down to comment on this video...

Tags:

TV Show: Birds of Prey

You may also like...

  • CaptainCalvinCat

    Okay, I watched the review and – here are my thoughts about it.

    The acid-gland in the mouth: Yes – the guy with the acid-gland in the mouth should
    be immune to his own acid produced INSIDE HIS BODY- BUT not neccessarily the
    rest of the body once it LEFT the body, right?

    I mean, I’m no doctor, but question: inside your body, there is acid active. Stomach Acid.

    If it could leave your body it is safe to assume, that you would get hurt by it. Hell, if
    the stomach acid enters your body, to be precise your gullet it can cause
    something called a reflux escophagitis – an inflammation of your gullet.
    And this is just your average stomach acid, that can cause harm in your body.

    So, you’re not immune to your own acid, you have in your stomach.

    THIS guy has an acid gland in his mouth – it is safe to assume, that he is not immune to
    the acid, once it leaves his body. If the John Shepard (the Killer) can take
    mutant powers – he has the acid gland of that guy and he spit that acid AT the
    dead guy. Again, if one guy could take YOUR stomach acid and throw it at you,
    you would probably not liking this, too.

    Plus – if John Shepard takes over the mutation of that guy, it is most certainly the acid
    of John Shepard, that kills the guy.

    To make that more transparent: Let me bring up scorpions, for example.
    Now, this killer is like a guy, temporaly taking over a scorpions stinger to kill said
    scorpion. Which is possible. Scorpions kill other scorpions at every occasion.
    See this entry of animal planet, for example: “Most scorpions are solitary and will

    attempt to kill and eat other scorpions that invade their territory.”

    half meta-human is possible

    One parent (I’m guessing: Catwoman) was the metahuman, and Bats was just a nutjob with a
    mask, so, the “normal guy”. So, if she is the daughter of a metahuman and a “normal man” (and im using normal quite loosely here ) it is possible.

    My theory concerning meta-meta and meta-humans is the following, and I know, this might
    be hard to believe, but keep in mind, this is just a show, so don’t take it so seriously:

    Do you know everything about your possible mate? I as sure as hell don’t. When I meet
    a person, that I find sympatico – what happens? Yes, we talk. We talk about what we like, what we don’t like, see how we click. When all works out well, and I want to have a relationship and she wants a relationship, one step leads to the other – and yet: some relationships have secrets.

    Let’s just – for agruments sake – say, that I would be a metahuman and let’s just for
    agrument say, that she’d be a metahuman, too, and we did not meet in a place
    where metahumans normally go, because we both do not really want to show, what
    we can do, what we are…
    If there is no reason of telling the respective partner what we would be… why would we?
    I think, you rather seldomly bring this up in a relationship then.

    That’s douchebagy, yes, but never the less, possible.

    Because for all intents and purposes, all you know is, that you just met a wonderful person
    and you don’t want to scare her away by saying “Oh, by the way, I’m a mutant.”

    Just – take X-Men for example:

    In those movies, there are reports of mutants, who “outed” themselves and yet some live
    their lives in the shadows, not recognized as a mutant. Hell, X-Men 2 made it clear, that sometimes even the mutants themselves don’t know that they are mutants.

    Now concerning Huntress: yes, she’s awesome. Imaging what she could do, if Batman would have
    been a mutant, too.

    Concerning Dinah: We don’t know, what her Dad can do – maybe in this continuity, Olly
    Queen was not the Black Canarys lover, maybe it was someone else. OR Mr. Queen
    himself was a mutant, too.

    We don’t know it.

    But even if she was only a “half-meta”, look how she wants to be part of that meta-group. Do you really think, that she would tell anybody, that she’d be “half-meta”? She’s a teenager, do teenies even do “half
    a thing”? Is that cool? No, it’s all or nothing. And Dinah wants to be a mutant, so – she’s a mutant.

    (un)fortunately, there were not enough episodes, to cover all of Dinahs background, so we’ll
    never know.

    Concerning John Shepard as the killer and why he introduced himself to the Detective… come
    on, isn’t that simple?
    Okay – let me ask you a question.

    If you’d be a psychotic killer, what job would you take?
    Of course that job, which enables you to kill and get away with it.
    That’d be crime-scene-cleaner, profiler, cop, caretaker – all those jobs, in which you could mess with the
    crime-scene, the case, etc. What you don’t do is pick a job that would make you appearing at those crime-scenes suspicious, for example: banker, post man, comic-book-reviewer… that sort of
    thing.

    Take “Dexter” for example – granted, I never watched that show, but it is about a cop that
    also is a serial-killer. Why is “a cop” the best thing that can happen to him?

    Like I said: He is able to falsify data, can mess with DNA-findings, delete or mess
    with marks, that he had left as the killer etc. etc. etc.

    In this case, John Shepard has this whole “X-Files-Thing” going for him, which again
    means, he can kill those “nasty mutants” and get away with it, because he is
    one of those, who are tyring to find the killer.

    There are two things, I agree with you: Nobody remembers Batman?!
    But then,on the other hand: noone remembers Harleen Quinzel being Harley Quinn, so…
    Another thing I agree with you: the death of John Shepard… yes – that was not really necessary.

    Concerning the “one generation ago” – “A generational cohort has been defined as
    “the group of individuals (within some population definition) who experience the same event within the same time interval”” (as said: Ryder, N., The cohort as a concept in the study of social change, presented at the 1959 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.)
    (Courtesy from uncle Wiki Pedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics#Generational_cohorts)

    There are several “generational cohorts” (or generations for short), those born between the 80s and early 2000 are the “Millenials” or the “millenial generation”, or “Generation Y” – predecessed by the
    Generation X. The now born generation is the “Generation Z”

    “One generation ago” is a fancy way of saying “some twenty years ago” – or “couple of time ago”, respectively.

    So, never the less, I would not go this far and say, that it insults the viewers intelligence.

    As you can see above, once you think about it, it can make sense.

    • Thomas Stockel

      I find your defense to be lacking. You are either super human, or you aren’t. You aren’t half mutant, you are either a mutant or non-mutant. Is The X-Men’s Iceman half mutant because only one of his parents had the gene? We aren’t talking about whether someone is half Japanese/half Caucasian; if you have super powers, then you are a meta human. If find your theories to be weak, but then again you are defending a weak show, so…

      And your use of Dexter is probably the worst possible example seeing as the cops in that show were the biggest collection of idiots to have worked with a serial killer under their collective noses for, what, a decade? And except for maybe one or two exceptions went entirely without a clue as to his nature. Like Solkir said, it makes far more sense to draw attention away from the killings rather than to them, so teaming up with a cop and saying you’re on the trail of a serial killer, thus linking all your murders rather than doing your best to make them look random, is utterly stupid. Smarter for him to kill and dispose of the bodies, or do your best to make the killings look as unrelated as possible.

      Finally, once more we see a villain die even though Barbara said in the pilot they don’t kill. Brain death, falling, being set on fire. Three shows, three fatalities. Way to go, heroes. At least in Arrow Oliver Queen made no pretense in season one of being any more or less a killer; he wasn’t a hypocrite like Huntress here. Or if Huntress is unabashedly a killer it’d be nice if Barbara would call her on it. At least Arrow was consistent in that we have back-to-back horrible portrayals of The Huntress.

      Finally, in regards to Harleen, we (Or at least, I don’t) don’t know whether or not she was Harley Quinn, or if she was whether or not she was The Joker’s sidekick and in disguise all that time. Having only seen the pilot and five minutes of the finale I never saw that part. So, since you watched the series in it’s entirety, did the heroes know Harleen Quinzel was Harley Quinn? If they did and she’s running around free then that just makes the series even more stupid, doesn’t it?

      • Solkir

        They don’t know until the end. I don’t really talk about it, but Harley is Huntress’ therapist throughout the course of the show.

        And even disregarding the fact that all of the detectives in Dexter are terrible at their jobs; Dexter at least tries to throw them off his trail. When he can’t dump the bodies in the bay, he makes some effort to make it look like a random act of violence. He doesn’t go to the chief with photos of all of his crimes and try to get the entire department on the case.

        It’s just terrible writing.

        • CaptainCalvinCat

          Sorry, Thomas – yes, if Iceman’s dad was a mutant, his mom was not … he by
          definition was half-mutant. What else?

          I mean, imagine if two mutants had a child – what would that be, if the
          child of one mutant and one human would be a complete mutant in and on itself?
          A superduperubermutant?

          Okay.

          Question: WHO would suspect the cop being the same killer, he is trying to
          hunt?

          Show of hands here?

          And yes – smarter would be kill and dispose – nevertheless: Would your first
          reaction on a crime scene be, to think that one of the cops could be the
          killer? One who is investigating the case, at that?

          No. you wouldn’t.

          Concerning the shows fatalities:

          Let’s think:

          We have 1) coma, because of the combined fighting back of the birds and in
          especially Dinah.

          2) The villain being killed in self-defence

          3) the villain committing suicide.

          What should they have done? Should Huntress jump after him, bringing her
          body between him and a the ground? No – wait, that was in Dark Knight, the
          “realistic” one. ^^

          Well, she calls him pudding, she wears the dress in the last episode and all
          in all it is strongly hinted throught the show, that she was the Jokers
          sidekick, e.g. using the Name “Mr. J.” so – yeah – it is Harley
          Quinn.

          The heroes know at the end of the show, that she is Harley.

          However – again: if people forgot about Bats or the Joker, it is safe to
          assume, that they’d forget Harley as well.

          • jjramsey

            Sorry, Thomas – yes, if Iceman’s dad was a mutant, his mom was not … he by definition was half-mutant. What else?

            But not all genes work that way. Genes for skin pigmentation sometimes do, so if one has a white parent and a very dark brown parent, there’s a good chance one will often be a lighter shade of brown. On the other hand, if one has one brown-eyed parent and one blue-eyed parent, then one will generally just be brown-eyed. Being a meta-human seems more like the latter than the former.

          • CaptainCalvinCat

            Okay, but I ask myself: What happens then, if two mutants have a kid? If the child of one mutant and one regular human becomes a mutant, what is with the child of two mutants? Do they have more power?

          • jjramsey

            Well, that obviously depends on whether the fictional universe in question treats the “mutant” gene (oh, comic book science, you) like a gene for eye color. The child of two brown-eyed parents doesn’t have browner eyes than the parents.

            Go read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance

            (Note, though, that not all genetic inheritance is Mendelian.)

          • CaptainCalvinCat

            Soooo – basically we have no idea, then, yes?
            Because we don’t know how the fictional universe in this show is set in treats the “mutant” gene.
            If so – then why this big thing from Solkir, about how “stupid” this would be.
            Again: We basically don’t know the shows standpoint on genes, don’t know if the mutant gene is dominant or recessive, so – actually even if some people think, it sounds stupid and that mutation is either a “on” or “off” thing – we don’t know the shows or the universes standpoint on it.

            It SOUNDS stupid, but I’m no geneticist, plus: to be honest, I have heard worse scientific explanations for something.
            I mean – come on: A normal guy gets a gamma-radiation-dose and not only does he survive that, but turns into a monster, when he gets angry?
            Another guy gets bitten by a (either radioactive or genetically enhanced) spider and not only does he survive that bite, but starts to crawl on walls.
            That sounds as equally stupid.
            And we as a comic-book-reading society don’t have a problem with Hulk or Spidey.
            But when Helena Kyle (and I don’t call her Huntress, because she doesn’t herself – at least not that often) says, that she’s half meta… that’s where we draw the line.

            To make myself crystal clear here:
            Guys, who turn into big, green, monsters, because they are angry is okay – but a girl calling herself half-meta, da ist Schluss mit lustig. (the party is over.).
            And where is even the difference?
            It are stupid-sounding-concepts now and it were stupid-sounding-concepts then.
            And not very well written ones.
            Yes, Birds of Prey has its fair share of stupid lines.
            But so does Hulk. Don’t believe me? Watch Atop the fourth wall – secret origins month – where Linkara is talking about the incredible hulk.

          • jjramsey

            Because we don’t know how the fictional universe in this show is set in treats the “mutant” gene.
            If so – then why this big thing from Solkir, about how “stupid” this would be.
            Again:
            We basically don’t know the shows standpoint on genes, don’t know if
            the mutant gene is dominant or recessive, so – actually even if some
            people think, it sounds stupid and that mutation is either a “on” or
            “off” thing – we don’t know the shows or the universes standpoint on it.

            Here’s the thing. For the most part, in this fictional universe, being metahuman is treated pretty much like an on/off thing. A metahuman is generally someone with a superpower, usually (but not always consistently) due to having a “metagene.” One could have a case where, say, someone born of a normal human and a metahuman had powers that were similar but weaker than those of the metahuman parent, but (1) such a person could just as well be a described as a relatively weak metahuman, since there’s no particular requirement that a metahuman have a certain power level, and (2) it doesn’t appear that Huntress’ abilities are a diluted version of those of her metahuman parent. It’s not as if Catwoman’s abilities were much, if any, different from her own.

            To make myself crystal clear here:
            Guys, who turn into big, green,
            monsters, because they are angry is okay – but a girl calling herself
            half-meta, da ist Schluss mit lustig. (the party is over.).

            The difference is that the latter is a failure of internal consistency, which is bad writing.

          • CaptainCalvinCat

            [quote] One could have a case where, say, someone born of a normal human and a
            metahuman had powers that were similar but weaker than those of the
            metahuman parent, but (1) such a person could just as well be a
            described as a relatively weak metahuman, since there’s no particular
            requirement that a metahuman have a certain power level, and (2) it
            doesn’t appear that Huntress’ abilities are a diluted version of those
            of her metahuman parent. It’s not as if Catwoman’s abilities were much,
            if any, different from her own.[/quote]

            (1) COULD is the operative word here – you COULD describe him as a relatively weak meta human – or a half meta.

            (2) That depends on what you think, Helenas powers are.

            Cell regeneration (one of Helenas Powers) is for example not one of Catwomans Powers – because if she would have said powers, Clayface could not have killed her that easily.

            Heightened agility could be one of the powers, but – as I read somewhere “mystic fighting powers” is bullcrap.

            The fighting skills are exactly that. SKILLS.

            She trained. Yes, her eyes are getting cat-like, before she fights, but that could be her activating her heightened agility, making the fighting-skills again… skills.

            [quote]

            The difference is that the latter is a failure of internal consistency, which is bad writing.[/iquote]
            Well – every superhero-story has sometimes bad writing, so… I don’t see why one makes such a big stink about Birds or Prey having it.

            *shrugs*

          • Solkir

            By the gods! I love how smart you are! I wish I had a medal that I could give to you.

          • Sean Tadsen

            “if Iceman’s dad was a mutant, his mom was not … he bydefinition was half-mutant.”

            Uh, no. Because again, being a mutant (or meta-human, or whatever) isn’t an ethnicity thing, it’s binary – you either are, or you aren’t. Meta-humans are people with superpowers, so since Huntress has superpowers, she is “by definition” a meta-human. Being “half-meta/mutant” is like literally being half-dead – it just doesn’t work. I think her whole “half-meta” is just a toned down version of crazy cop’s racism.

            “What should they have done? Should Huntress jump after him, bringing herbody between him and a the ground?”

            She could at least try. The first two I can excuse, but just standing there while he commits suicide? What kind of hero does that?

          • CaptainCalvinCat

            That “half meta” thing could – I agree with you there, Sean – have its origins in the fact, that – when I remember correctly, and I watched the show just a couple of weeks ago – I think, only Helena herself brings up.

            Maybe, she does not want to call herself a “meta” – and I could understand why.
            After all: Most of the “metas” she know are either strange or evil.

            That Gibbson-Character in the No man’s land- bar for example. His power is the perfect memory. And that was back in the day, where one had apparently had no idea, how to write such a person.
            Today we have “unforgettable” and “suits”, both showing that those characters can be a bit quirky, yes, but not weird neccessarily.
            Never the less – except for Dinah, most of the metas, our good Helena meets are either weird or downright evil. I think, I’d distance myself from such a group, too, if I’d be her, making myself, at least for me ,and for everyone who asks “just half meta.”

            And I have to disagree with you on the “standing there his just wrong”.
            In that moment, in which he stands there, on the roof and is ready to jump: what are your alternatives?

            You are neither Supes, nor Bats, nor Wondy – you you’re not faster than a speeding bullet, you don’t have a grappling hook or a lasso, you could throw at him – so sure, you could jump at him, but… again: in that case you probably would be ending falling down WITH him.

            Plus: the killer had it coming.
            I mean – he could have given up, you know?
            He was overpowered and he knew it – and the only thing, that came to his mind was:”ah, frak it – I’m out of here.”
            That might be the first kneejerk raction, but…
            sorry – that guy is to blame, too.
            He could have said “You know, everytime I see one of you, I get some headaches. Now I see, that those metahumans are not just some few, but there is a whole community of them. Do you have doctors? Maybe they could have a look at my brain and stop that, what is going on there.”

            But no, instead he is like: “Ahhhh, wayyyyyy toooo many mutants. Ah frak this city, I’m outta here. GERONIMOOOOOO!”

            And what kind of hero watches that?
            That hero, that knows, that he (the hero) has little to no chance of winning this, at all.

Advertisements