NBC’s Powerless is back for it’s third episode. I decided to give it another try. One last chance to win me over. I will say that I did like the first episode, but then I basically hated the second one. So I thought I’d do a best of three here. If I like this episode, I told myself as the opening credits were rolling, then I’ll stick with it, But if I don’t then I’m out. So let’s see how it did:
1. Daddy Issues
Alan Tudyk’s Van Wayne character has daddy issues. Which I guess isn’t surprising when you look at him as a character. He’s a whiny, incompetent, rich kid. Van’s dad, played by Corbin Bernsen, is a bully, who constantly tells his son how much he doesn’t love him. It’s a weird family dynamic that is usually played up in sitcoms and other TV shows for dramatic effect. But here it just comes off as dull, boring, and cliched. I like Corbin Bernsen as an actor, but the whole bully/dick dad act just felt tired and played out.
Van spends most of the episode whining and writing shitty songs about his daddy and also trying his hardest to impress his dad by landing a new and lucrative client (after blowing a $75 million annually account). The most off-putting part about this to me was that Van has to be at least in his late thirties or early forties. And he’s still crying about how his daddy doesn’t love him. It’s just weird and sad and very un-funny to me.
Last episode they really played up Van’s incompetentness, but here they made him seem like a twelve year old boy and it just wasn’t working for me.
I hate you, Van Wayne.
2. A Superhero in the Office
This was the episode’s b-story. There’s a new guy in the office, Alex. He’s good looking to the point where everyone’s making “I’d totally bang him” jokes. Alex has this weird habit of disappearing any time there’s an emergency that requires the involvement of a superhero. There’s a new flash on the TV in the office about a school bus teetering dangerously over the edge of a bridge and Alex excuses himself to go to the bathroom. And two seconds later we see a superhero flying by the window.
Is he? Isn’t he? It becomes an obsession to Ron and Teddy. Teddy’s interested in the possible development, but nowhere near as crazy as Ron goes. Ron takes it so far he’s even recording Alex in the restroom. Which sets off another series of “I’d bang him” jokes.
Actually, I enjoyed this part of the episode much more than the main storyline. I thought they played up the cheekyness of it, even if they got a little too stalkery with the “I’d bang him” jokes.
3. Aquaman?
Another part of the main storyline is Van’s schmoozing of three businessmen from Atlantis. Van is hoping that if he’s able to lock down this HUGE contract he’ll finally be able to win over his father’s affection (ugh), and that his father will finally tell him he loves him (again…ugh). He convinces the Atlantean businessmen to attend his “Sinking Day” party because Aquaman is his BFF and is going to attend, but (LOL) Van doesn’t know Aquaman and he’s never had a “Sinking Day” party.
He makes Emily do all the work preparing for the party and figure out what to do about the Aquaman issue.
I knew Aquaman wasn’t actually going to make an appearance on the show, but a part of me was like maybe, just maybe. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. But the “Sinking Day” party scenes are pretty good. I think I got some genuine laughs out of it. There were a lot of fish related jokes.
I wonder if they’re ever actually going to get an A- (or even B-) list superhero on the show, instead of just name dropping them left and right. Probably not.
4. A Burn on Trump
There was a pretty good dig at Trump in this episode, which likened the president to a supervillain, and I think that is just great.
Continued belowThe team is discussing leading causes of what causes a supervillain and Ron says that one cause of supervillainy is losing the popular vote but somehow still managing to win the election.
Classic.
5. The Verdict?
Short answer: I don’t freaking know. I’m still on the fence about this damn show.
Longer (but still pretty short) answer: I liked this episode better than the first two. (Again I’ll say that I liked the first episode well enough, but I hated the second episode). So, this is still not great TV but it’s getting better. Maybe? Hopefully? I don’t know.
In all honestly, I think my main issue with the show is Van (Alan Tudyk). His character is just terrible. And, seriously, the only things I didn’t like about this episode were his parts. Everything else was good and funny and makes me think that maybe this show isn’t as terrible as my last review of it might lead you to believe. I’m just over the generic man-baby-overgrown-child-as boss role. There was so much more they could have done with Van Wayne but they had to make him this fucking mess of cliches.
I have a feeling that this show is going to vary by the episode for me. I think I’m either going to love them or flat out hate them. And that’s okay, I guess. I’ll be back next week to play another round of Russian Roulette with this thing.
Hopefully, the fourth episode won’t be as Van-centric.
