I’d call this the mid-season slump if it weren’t the fifth of what I assume will be closer to a 30-episode season. Anyhow, last week’s “The Zemo Sanction” was a snooze and it’s totally permissible considering it’s A) the first bland (not bad) episode and B) not that bad (just bland).
1. Zemo Money Mo’ etc.
Cap and Panther get into a Secret Avenger Secret Chat regarding some convenient motivation for T’Challa to team up with Helmut Zemo. After walking through the front door of Zemo’s castle, Panther wrecks some robot knights (cool) and disturbs Zemo doing…something. Helmut, son of Heinrich, is not the experimental-super-glue-obsessed Nazi his father was. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume Helmut showed up somewhere in a season I haven’t seen, otherwise we’re just flying blind on this dude ’cause he’s pretty chummy with Panther and, like, wants to reform? His skull-lookin’ mask looks cool I guess. It must be pretty awkward for this dude, walking around his family castle with giant wall scrolls of his Nazi dad hangin’ around while he helps Black Panther fight a shark man.
2. An Unexpected Guest
Tiger Shark is back and I guess he’s a full-fledged member of the Shadow Council! He really wants these files that Zemo has on his computer and he is ready to die for them. Twice. As it turns out, water, in all of its forms, is conducive to man-shark use. Tiger Shark escapes death both times by swimming in snow before, during and after falling thousands of feet off two different mountains.
3. The Sword of Wakanda
Shuri is big in the Alps this episode, as T’Challa’s eye-in-the-sky while he pals around with that son-of-a-Nazi. She gets a nice something to do in the form of a Shadow Council helicarrier which, of course, looks like a wooden hover-galleon. After the majority of the episode is spent plinking at the galleon’s hard-light shields (?), Shuri pulls a Holdo Maneuver and rams it, sinking that boat. Shuri continues to be the active “person-in-the-chair” and fills all the necessary roles her brother is seemingly incapable of performing all by his lonesome, which is incredibly satisfying for me to see a superhero in constant need of help from others because I can totally relate.
4. Marvel Team-Up
At this point there’s no ignoring the format: They’re going for a Panther-focused Marvel Team-Up where T’Challa gets to be in every episode to fulfill some small part of a much larger vague task alongside another cool character, while opposed by some monster-of-the-week. The formula totally works and is weirdly fresh in this format…this one just happens to be pretty dull since Zemo is playing nice, and the whole episode centers around computer files.
5. Subtle Upgrade
I went back and watched some episodes from last season for comparison and was pleasantly surprised to find that not only is the animation better now, the style guide has seemingly been updated. Everything from the costumes to the physical stature of the designs has been slimmed down to something resembling a normal human being. This could be the result of a new creative team or simply just the focus on a strictly human-sized character with size-differentials being reserved for characters that require it for emphasis. Enemies being big elicits an intimidating impression, go figure.
