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!
Oh, and check out our recently concluded 2022 Summer TV binges, where Multiversity staffers reach back in time to review comics/comics-adjacent/nerdy shows all summer (and the first half of fall) long. (Here’s a handy list of what’s been covered too.) Thanks y’all.
Andor – “Nobody’s Listening!” (S1E9, Disney+)
Read our full review by Brian Salvatore.
Dead End: Paranormal Park – “Eat the Parents” (S2E4, NETFLIX)
Of all the things to make a comeback in this episode, I would not have predicted it would be the Evil Spoon. Can you believe it? Evil spoon! I love Dead End’s commitment to recurring jokes and characters, even minor ones. It makes the show feel more alive and whole while allowing for long term narrative threads to marinate in the background. I hope we get the adventures of Gord & the Evil Spoon soon. That’s the spin-off we need.
As for the rest of the episode, Barney is finally introducing Logs, Norma and Courtney to his family and sets up a chill coffee meet. Naturally, Norma & Courtney take this as a challenge and turn it into an elaborate dinner where anything and everything will go wrong. But it’s not their fault everything goes wrong! Or at least not totally their fault.
I’ll be honest, I was very nervous about where this was going. I’m not a big fan of embarrassing dinner conversations with the parents as a source of drama. It’s a bad mix of comedy of errors and miscommunication and awkward silences. Doesn’t matter how true to life that is, I don’t like it. I breathed quite a sigh of relief when “Eat the Parents” focused on teasing out Logs’ insecurities while also having all the things go wrong because of a possessed, monkey’s paw-esque book. A book that housed Harmony!
You remember Harmony. He was the creepy trust builder from “Trust Me”. He’s back and even creepier than ever, now that he’s just a head attached to a spine coming out of a demonic soup bowl. Oh and there’s eyes in the soup too. Count me thoroughly grossed out and once again thankful that this show is not trying to be bone-chilling, just scary.
It actually reminded me that this show is a horror-comedy and that it does both very effectively. We’d gotten plenty of comedy this week but this was the turning point for the horror. It’s a hard balance to strike and the show does it wonderfully.
That said, I’m so mad. They got me! I didn’t guess Harmony was the big bad and I really should’ve realized, what with Alan Cummings clearly being the voice from the book from his voice and the, you know, preying on fear. Like, what better place for fear than a dinner with your boyfriend’s parents and his two intense and weird friends? Doesn’t matter how much you love your friends, you’ll be breaking out in a sweat by the end.
Anyway, “Eat the Parents” is another banger from the team. We’ve got more mysteries surrounding 5 Fingers’ plans, the establishment of Logs’ fears which are definitely going to come back when Asmodeus comes back, and more of Norma/Courtney being absolute goofballs. We’ve got short, medium, and long term storytelling strengths. And we’ve got Norma’s diagram of a stereotypical life, a sight gag so funny I had to pause the episode, I was laughing so hard. If you’re not fully on board with the show yet, I don’t know what to tell you but you really should be. – Elias Rosner
Pennyworth – “Don’t Push It” (S3E7, HBO Max)
Martha starts the episode being woken up by an anonymous phone call. The person on the other end tells her about the death of John Salt. She is told that the British government has confiscated his lab and all of his research on PWEs. When Martha later confronts Aziz about it, saying that she should have been informed in her position in MI5 his denials turn to anger at the leak. She’s lost her trust in Aziz here.
Continued belowThomas’ absence has upset Martha and little Sam. She’s been calling him, but he hasn’t responded. She gets some advice from Alfred’s mom and I believe she suspects Thomas is responsible for the death of his father. All we see of Thomas is him drinking in the Wayne Manor library.
The bulk of the episode is focused on Alfred’s latest jailbreak attempt. Daveboy has been helping him scour a section of the English countryside, but they’ve come up empty handed until Alfred sees a boy he once knew.
At the pub a local tells him they are looking for a prison without walls and it wasn’t a ghost Alfred saw. Daveboy is ready to give up, but Alfred sets off without him in the morning. He discovers a hatch and enters a Bond villain looking lair.
During Alfred’s search he has a series of painful flashbacks to his time in the war. We see him come across a young boy in occupied territory and befriend him. We follow their journey through enemy lines to find a safe place for the boy to stay. Just as Alfred finds a safe village to leave the boy, tragedy strikes. The young boy who we learned is named Levan in his only dialogue steps on a landmine. The theme the show is getting at carries on from Alfred’s conversation with Zahra a few episodes ago. We carry the past with us. I get that Alfred would remember this and be troubled by it years later, but it’s hard to believe this is the worst trauma he’s had to experience. War is horrible and it’s not like he’s been living a peaceful life since the start of the show. He came home to Esmé murdered while he was out kissing Martha in season one. That trauma has stuck to him, but the show needed to give us something new.
When Alfred finds Zahra’s father we learn the flashbacks are being triggered by the prison’s “psychic fence”. When they are caught Alfred is brought to meet our Bond villain The Warden. She uses the power of the psychic fence to make Alfred finish his flashback and enjoys digging through her inmate’s trauma. When Daveboy and Lucius arrive to rescue him, they reveal the psychic fence isn’t a machine but a person. Another PWE that Lucius tried to help. Alfred confronts the psychic and by unplugging him allows them all to leave safely.
Alfred returns Zeya to Zahra and in the process begins to accept the trauma in his past. They end with a kiss. Three more to go! – Matthew Vincenty
Quantum Leap – “Ye Of Little Faith” (S1E7, NBC)
One of the constant refrains from this first season of the Quantum Leap reboot has been that there is not enough time with Ben in each leap. This episode changed that nicely, limiting the Addison interference and time spent at HQ, and let Ben figure out the situation himself. This was also a timely Halloween episode, and gave Ben some serious metaphysical questions to answer. In that way, this also felt like a trip back to an older series, where there was a less knee-jerk reaction to a science versus paranormal question. Science still won out, but the type of ‘both sides’-ing the episode did felt very much like a throwback.
The whole episode is a play on The Exoricist, and a fun one at that. Ben really had to put on his detective hat and get to the bottom of this. Of course, he’s aided by the presence of encyclopedias, some Jewish folklore, and a little tip of the hat to C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series, but the episode showed us just how capable Ben can be without Addison, and that’s a good thing for the show to explore a bit more.
The episode also managed to push the season’s arc forward by having Janis show up and reveal that, yes, she is on Ben’s side through all of this. That was implied, but is a nice bit of information to chew on. The show’s team-heavy format is starting to coalesce into something a little more balanced, and the series is improving for it. – Brian Salvatore
Continued below
Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles – “Invasion!” (S2E10, NETFLIX)
Tune in on Tuesday for the full review of the season 2 (and perhaps series) finale by Elias Rosner.
Stargirl – “Frenemies – Chapter Nine: The Monsters” (S3E9, The CW)
With news of its cancellation hitting earlier this week, it is hard to look at any episode of this season of Stargirl without factoring in the end. This episode takes a few steps to address some season-long story lines, but still feels like it is pretty far away from winding the series down. The producers reportedly knew that the cancellation was likely imminent, and have indicated that they made the season finale able to act as a series one if need be, but only one plot point here, the search for Mike’s mom, feels like it is something a little bigger than just the ‘Frenemies’ arc.
This episode goes a long way to showing both how Rick has changed due to his character’s growth, and also from his addiction. Rick is the character that has been consistently ignored over the seasons, and I’m glad to see him getting a little more of a spotlight this season, even if a lot of it is, still, just him being mad. We also get more insight into the Mahkents, and continue seeing the ‘Grandma is evil, Grandpa is chill’ pattern emerge. Also back in the spotlight are the Crocks, with all three having scenes where they are getting closer to the JSA and the Whitmore/Dugans. This feels like either the Crocks are truly reformed, or they are being set up for a major heel turn. I’m leaning towards the former.
Mike and Jakeem get a little more to do here, spotting one of the titular monsters and, for one, getting the Thunderbolt to actually listen to them. The Mike story has a lot of potential, but it seems like there may not be enough time to really dig into that area.
Most of all, this episode begins to put the pieces of the JSA back together after a season of them fragmenting. This is a series that seems to be begging for one more season, but without that happening, it’s going to be especially hard to wrap up all the tendrils that are out there by the finale in December. – Brian Salvatore
Star Trek: Prodigy – “Let Sleeping Borg Lie” (S1E12, Paramount+)
The crew digs into the past to try and see what they can learn about this “weapon” the Diviner supposedly had on the Protostar. Combing over every part of the ship, they discover a new energy source buried deep in its engine. While continuing their voyage, they come across a dormant Borg cube.
Holo-Janeway gives the cadets a rundown on Borg history and factoids when they realize that Borg tech could be the key to deactivating this unknown weapon on the Protostar. The Borg ship is silent as its entire crew are asleep and recharging. Each cadet has a fairly different reaction to the ship. Dal and Gwyn are on the same page of equal parts caution and wonder, Pog is blown away by technology and construction, but begins to become freaked out by its alien-ness.
I don’t think there was any mistake that this episode dropped the week of Halloween. It’s a bit spooky as Trek fans rarely see a dormant Borg cube. And it has been so long since we’ve been with characters who knew nothing of them that it feels refreshing to go back to a basic understanding of them, even with Holo-Janeway’s brief lesson.
This episode also adds to the canon in some unexpected ways. We get some new ideas as to how and what happens when you are assimilated, and in a fairly shocking reveal through Zero’s point of view, a look at what is at the core of the Borg collective, beyond any ship, drone, or even a queen. It’s an interesting addition, but does feel a bit like things that were brought to light in The Matrix Revolutions. This may rub some fans the way, but it is a detail that doesn’t break existing canon, it’s more like a light was shown on a new secret.
Continued belowAt the other side of the galaxy, Vice Admiral Janeway has had to alter her caffeine intake (There’s NO coffee in that nebula.), and is working with Dr. Noum and her crew to find out who the Diviner is and what secrets he may hold. As they continue to search for the Protostar and Chakotay, they come across the destroyed space relay from the last episode and vow to hunt down whoever caused the disaster.
Like most of the weakest parts of this quite good series, this episode never feels as dangerous as one may hope. Because it is a 20+ min kids show, it’s short runtime makes for the crew escaping the Borg in more than one way that feels rushed and playing it way too safe. More and more Zero is becoming a Deus Ex Medusan. And while they are a wonderful character unlike most in all of Trek, it’s become a balancing act of using them in an interesting capacity in which we simply learn more about their species, and using them to wrap up a story and save the day with what we are learning about them, and the scales are definitely sliding in one direction.
Episode 12 is a mostly enjoyable story, but as the writing has continued to grow and feel like a proper all-ages show, this one felt like a slight step back to appease the parents of the youngest audience members. While I believe this series to be a great entry for younger Trekkies, if you’re going to use the Borg, use the Borg. Make them scary. Give viewers of all ages some real stakes that aren’t reversed only a handful of minutes later, carry it over to another episode! As someone who grew up on all existing Trek through the late 80s to early 00s, I started watching at age 3-4 and was in love with it instantly. Kids can handle this franchise in all his forms, including the scarier stuff. – Christopher Egan
Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi – “Life and Death,” “Justice,” “Choices,” “The Sith Lord,” “Practice Makes Perfect,” “Resolve” (S1E1-S1E6, Disney+)
Read our full review of all of season 1 by Brian Salvatore.
Titans – “Lex Luthor” (S4E1, HBO Max)
Read our full review of the season 4 premiere by Michael Mazzacane.
Titans – “Mother Mayhem” (S4E2, HBO Max)
Towards the end of this week’s episode of Titans the titular team gets out of their RV dressed for battle. That image captures the hollowness of what was an otherwise fine episode of television. The Titans get off the RV and are shown in formation, it’s supposed to be a cool team shot. The kind of shot you’ve seen before, and yet it falls flat. Because it just sort of happens. Sure, it is setup in this ironic “why is it so hard to leave Metropolis?” kind of way but the staging, a suddenly clear patch of freeway, does nothing to capture the grandeur it wants to evoke. There just isn’t any life to the scene or the choreography that follows with basic shot reverse shot energy blasting and hand to hand choreography that looks stiffer than Iron Fist. It goes for grand and comes up with a staid feeling. The sequence does nothing to put over the eponymous Mother Mayhem. Franka Potente is chewing scenery in a delightful fashion but thus far I have no reason to care or fear this priestess of the Church of Blood.
Titans is often crouched in this posture of trying to be and look bigger than it is, and instead it makes it look small. Which is odd since Berlanti Productions has made their name on doing a lot with a little. Director Nick Copus leans towards horror this episode as the series becomes something of a supernatural procedural, but they never seem to go far enough. The general constant low-level feeling of dread is appropriate, but nothing ever moves too outright horrific the way season 1 did. If Tim Drake is the only one reacting to things the audience knows it’s honestly not that bad. (I say this about seeing a mother with her throat slashed and people hanging from hooks slowly being drained of their blood, so perhaps I’m just bent a little.)
Continued belowEpisode scribe Bryan Edward Hill, and the rest of the writers, manage a solid supernatural procedural though. Just enough investigation mixed with character beats. Joshua Orpin continues to show more of Conner Kent as he adjusts to being wrongfully accused of his father’s murder.
There is the hanging thread of Sebastian Blood. Audiences are given no reason to pity this man, besides the fact he’s a working class dude with dreams of upward mobility and generally feels alienated from the world. His becoming possessed by the Church of Blood forms the c plot of the episode and it’s just kind of there.
Overall “Mother Mayhem” is just a fine episode of TV, not bad but not memorable either. – Michael Mazzacane
The Walking Dead – “Outpost 22” (S11E21, AMC)
Read our full review by Chris Cole.
