Welcome back to Boomb Tube! Here, we will be catching you up on the week in comics TV, both through micro-reviews, as well as links to our full-length TV reviews. We also tend to review series that are dropped all at once weekly so there are a few ‘older’ shows mixed in for good measure. Are we missing your favorite show? Let us know in the comments!
And since the summer is here, check out our 2022 Summer TV binges, where Multiversity staffers reach back in time to review comics/comics-adjacent/nerdy shows all summer long. (Here’s a handy list of what’s being covered too.)
The Boys – “Herogasm” (S3E6, Amazon Prime)
Read our full review by Ramon Piña.
Dead End: Paranormal Park – “Night of the Living Kids” (S1E4, NETFLIX)
Is every episode going to open with a Gorm scene? Because if so, I will be ecstatic. Should I change my twitter handle to @gormluvr5evar? …On second thought maybe not.
Something I’ve appreciated before but am really coming to love is the way Dead End is plotted. There’s a great sense of balance between the emotional arcs, the single episode arcs, the far-away but still present narrative threads, and the complications of the ongoing plots like Courtney’s attempts to get home via Pugsly’s power. It really feels like the show is fighting against the impulses of Netflix’ binge model to give us a season that works as discrete units as well as a whole.
What happens in “Night of the Living Kids” is Barney & Norma are chaperones for an overnight park birthday party, which turns out to be for Barney’s younger brother. Barney is understandably worried since he, you know, ran away from home and hasn’t contacted his bro. Norma makes another friend via an 11-year old Polly superfan, Courtney tries to mellon-ball Pugsly’s eyes out, and Norma forces everyone to watch a spooky movie.
Eventually this leads to another misadventure thanks to chaos gremlin Courtney vomiting up a wolf bone so that a bunch of kids can summon bloody mary’s less gorey but still terrifying cousin The Night Hag. I’m actually surprised we didn’t have the one kid who was so terrified they wouldn’t participate because that would be me. Are kids just less scared about the supernatural nowadays? Or was this a self-selecting group? Leo seemed scared but not during the summoning.
Whatever the case, this sets the stage for 12 minutes of great horror homages, including a whole bunch of Jurassic Park ones, and a resolution that’s pitch perfectly Dead End. I did find the mirroring of Barney’s relationship with his brother with the Day & Night Hags to be a bit unnecessary but it’s a minor gripe because I found the emotional underpinnings moving. Building on what we learned in “Trust Me,” Barney feels unsafe at home not because his parents are horrible people but because they stand by in silence when he’s being belittled by his grandmother and we see this at the end of the episode, though in a different form.
Clearly his parents care for him and clearly he cares for them but he does not feel like his house is his home anymore. I appreciate “Night of the Living Kids” for letting that be the note we leave Barney & his brother with. Life is hard and even well-meaning people cause harm. We all know what that looks like and what it feels like. And it’s hard and awful and true and in a kids show with talking dogs and strange worm creatures, it’s important to center that reality in addition to the fantastical. – Elias Rosner
Ms. Marvel – “Time and Again” (S1E5, Disney+)
Read our full review by Christopher Chiu-Tabet.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – “The Quality of Mercy” (S1E10, Paramount+)
Stay tuned for our full review of the season 1 finale on Tues by Christopher Egan.
Stranger Things – “The Massacre at Hawkins Lab” (S4E7, Netflix)
Read our full review by Christopher Chiu-Tabet.
The Umbrella Academy– “Pocket Full of Lightning” (S3E3, Netflix)
The “Grandfather paradox” is the main takeaway from this episode as it not only is given the proper explanation at the forefront, but it’s the central theme. Since The Umbrella Academy has returned to “their time,” they’ve not only changed history with The Sparrow Academy but also wiped themselves from existence. This not only affects them, however, as it has worldwide repercussions like the blasts that have been coming from the energy orb from the academy that is now starting to wipe out people. Both teams cannot help but hear the coverage of missing people on the various news outlets but ignore it due to their selfish goals.
Once again, various members are handling this “paradox” in their way; for example, Five has teamed up with Lila, who, despite trying to kill each other initially, have made a pact that works for both of them. Fix the briefcases, get the timeline straightened out and be on with their own lives. It feels too quick as they get a minor jump to the timeline headquarters, but luckily it’s messed up in its way to add some more twist to the story.
Klaus, the self-proclaimed “spiritual one” of the group, is the one giving this new and weird timeline some more depth and heart. His solo venture is to Viktor Hargreeves, AKA the adoptive father of both academies. There is finally some depth to his character and other emotions shown than being annoyed at the kids when it’s revealed he’s being medicated and essentially pushed around by The Sparrow Academy instead of his dictator-like role for The Umbrella Academy. It’s uncertain where this falls into play with the overall arc, but it does seem like a good idea to have Hargreeves on their side if it comes down. – Alexander Manzo
