Our quest takes us back home to Wakanda HQ, where our heroes can squabble as they determine the next step in the search for grandpa’s gold. No new faces, and certainly no skull-faces, await this time in our first fully congruent episode in a long while. I suspect this may also be the closest thing to a Thanksgiving episode we get considering it’s about brothers fighting, siblings taking sides, unwanted guests wrecking your get-together, botched introductions, and that awkward conversation with your co-worker’s buddy that happens to be a newly reformed ex-Nazi.
1. Cue the Doves
Jeff Allen has been a contributing director for a huge amount of episodes from this and previous seasons but, for at least the first time this year, he plays a incredibly heavy hand. “The Good Son” is a largely action-focused episode that Allen has blocked as if an operatic Hong Kong action banger. It’s maybe a little jarring in comparison to previous episodes, but I’ve certainly no problem with the dramatic close-ups, dutch angles, and wild gesticulating before a big fight.
While a lot of the visual breakdowns are pretty solid, the actual animation is a bit more inconsistent than previous episodes. Weird cut-frames and some bland backgrounds make up the back half of the episode, along with some strange perspective issues regarding the size of M’Baku and the various perspectives he’s presented in. None of this is too terribly uncommon for this show, but for the most part it’s looked pretty alright, it’s likely just more noticeable due to the extra scrutiny caused by such a dramatic shift in visual storytelling. All told, if some wonky animation is the price for some fun experiments in camera movement and character locomotion, I’ll gladly continue to pay.
2. Cat’s Outta the Bag
T’Challa wants to discuss his ancient family puzzle piece so he invites all of the Secret Avengers, which is literally just Cap. Everything goes pretty well: Hunter intercepts Cap and tries to gut him with a giant wrist-blade, T’Challa and Hunter get into a fuss over who gets invited into the Panther King’s Kids Club, and Cap finally learns that Zemo has been hanging’ around the royal computer lab. Cap’s eyes white over and begin glowing, death is his only gift and he must give it to the closest Nazi. Just as Steve is about to mash Zemo’s cheek meat through a sieve of broken glass, Panther winds his ass down and convinces him to listen to Helmut’s Keynote presentation (he hates it).
I’ve mentioned before that most, if not all, of the supporting characters work well as foils to T’Challa’s straight man game and Cap is no exception. For the majority of the season so far he’s been portrayed as the Cap we all know and expect with little motivation given to the things he says and does (who needs it?) but we finally get a little morsel of perturbation and emotional conflict from him when he very clearly wants to choke Zemo out but cannot. True pathos.
3. Hardlight Mech Suit in a China Shop
M’Baku is back as a sort of B-plot distraction to both the audience and our heroes. Besides giving Shuri a little something to do, the escape and chaos caused by M’Baku gives us the rare glimpse at the ass-wrecking Dora Milaje doing what they do. M’Baku really gets to go whole hog since the last time T’Challa, Shuri and Hunter barely squeaked by with some treehouse treachery. Smashing up walls and sewers, using Eames chairs like shuriken, and giggling all the while, M’Baku seems like a fun character to plot for since he’s pretty much only around to wreck everything around him and look cool doing it before getting dismantled by the Dora Milaje.
4. Work From Home
As head of security in Wakanda and the palace specifically, White Wolf has found a nice little niche to put his pride and effort into, but he’s doing that all-too-relatable thing where you get so invested in your new full-time job that it kind of consumes you and enters into all facets of your life. You think you’re striking a nice work/life balance, but from the outside you’re just this crazy person that talks about their job too much and gets a little aggressive and protective of it until you ultimately self-destruct and become the villain by doing what you thought was best at the time. He’s that guy. He’s also totally right, T’Challa has no business trying to figure out what cool shit he can do with the laserghoul cube or whatever his grandpa hid. Also? I don’t get why Steve isn’t throwing in his unsolicited advice considering he was there dismembering Shadow Council goons with GrandPanther. You’d think he’d at least throw in a casual “oh fuck that thing right into the sun” or something.
Continued below5. Artifacts of Life
Hey! So we finally find out a little bit about the little cat paw puzzle that Grampa Panther hid from the world. You see, years ago Cap and T’Challa’s grandfather were pals. One busy day of stomping Nazis led them to the Shadow Council and their plan to weaponize a Wakandan artifact. Before the gallons of fascist blood could curdle on the floor, T’Challa’s grandfather took the artifact and hid it somewhere no one but a Panther could access, the Shrouded Temple. I’m sure if it’s important someone will eventually tell us what that is, just not this time.
Now that we have direction and the pieces are finally in a focused motion maybe the momentum will continue and the threat can escalate into something a little less hermetic, expanding the scope of whatever is going on to something more threatening than mysterious. We still don’t know a single goal of the Shadow Council’s or even what turned N’Jadaka but we’re sure to find out later than sooner, though it’s been a fun enough ride. Here’s to hoping we get a new team-up next week!
