We’re in the future everyone! A world that is almost entirely spoilers so buckle in, and let’s see what tomorrow has in store for precious little Scott Pilgrim.
1. “Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted.”
In my review of the first episode, I spoke about how much love the show evidently has for the city of Toronto. You can tell just from how it was rendered. You can say much the same about the future in “2 Scott 2 Pligrim.” It feel like everything widens out the moment we see the world of Old Scott, and has to be a little less subjective than the setting prior, so the viewer can gawk like regular Scott does.
It’s a very beautiful analogue future setting. For whatever reason, my brain just melted with satisfaction at a three section montage of a robot spewing some adapters and turning into a telescope. The brain craves Transformers without even knowing. That said, the ‘future trams’ of Toronto are basically just the Australian trams of today, sorry to say. You are all missing out on real engineering in the Northern Hemisphere.
Speaking of brain melters, I think if I had a fever and I watched that music video that Scott and the twins made I would pass away.
2. Good taste never goes out of style
Maybe it’s because this is the first episode of Scott Pilgrim that is fully about Scott Pilgrim so far, but the Scott Pilgrim-y reference meter really goes out the window this episode. Some of them are winners, HADOUKEN is a great passcode. But then putting a Virtual Boy behind the Street Fighter vault door is an egregious levels of nerd referencing. Yellow card.
It was so weird seeing a minion in the honeymoon montage as well. The world of Scott Pilgrim has no space for minions. 2013 is just too far for Scott to see into the future. The best gag of the episode by far though has to be Wallace Wells’ Nintendo employee husband and the sheer havoc it wreaks on Scott’s view of the world.
3. Checking in on old (normal) friends
Will Forte does a great job as older Scott, but I do find it so weird that every other character has their regular voice except Scott. Between this and a different Teenage Scott actor, it really feels like they only had an hour and half to get all of Michael Cera’s lines out of him and just shuffled any extra work off to whoever they had on the Netflix studio lot.
I was very happy to see sexy older Wallace, who continues to be a real diamond in the rough for the series. The bit of ‘remember envy … times ten’ is a fun shorthand that shows how old Wallace and young Scott still have the same interplay, and keeps the series in tandem with its viewer.
Finally, we get to see the latter-day version of our true protagonist, Ramona Flowers. This Death Stranding Ramona really needs a new job though, no one should have to endure delivery for this long. Especially after Netflix must have fired her too. I do hope some bright spark makes a little collage of all the old-and-regular Ramona photos too.
4. Dastardly Schemes
It has been frustrating to see how consistently vacant the plot of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off has been. For a show with such incredible opportunity and potential, it really consistently wastes it on a story that is new but ultimately lacks much inspiration. For all the new left-turns this episode takes, it’s hard to argue there’s anything different to that summary for episode 7. The episode feels very… written by itself. Like a Scott Pilgrim madlib. Ultimately, the idea that the end of the original Scott Pilgrim would lead to Scott becoming an evil ex himself is just sort of lame. It’s the first “happy never after” first future you could come up with, and the writers stuck with it. They have a lot to learn from Young Neal, who may be the greatest creative mind of our time.
5. Welcome to the pointy end
One more episode to go! Will Scott and Ramona ever be able to kiss again? Or will they realize they forgot to leave room for Jesus. I do think I have to apologize for getting all worked up about the threat of a musical episode, with only a finale to go I think we’re safe from the threat of a full Buffy-esque musical episode, but the fact that they played dubstep during the intro to the musical theater does suggest the vibes could be anywhere by the time this wraps up.
Regardless, I will see you there next week. Live large, Pilgrims.