Well, for the first time i think ‘Powerless’ overcompensated a bit with trying to play too much on the side of including elements of DC comics, which resulted in an episode full of heroes and links to comics, but lacking a lot of the humor the show had managed to develop in the previous seven episodes. And I do fully recognize the irony since my chief complaint is that the show does not do enough DC Comics material in their episodes, but really, it is all about balance, and the show is supposed to be a comedy, and you have to have both.
This week’s episode is all about Emily’s newfound friendship with Green Fury, the new hero in town introduced last week, who Emily just so happens to save in the opening scene this week when Green Fury is almost hit by a blast from Jack-o-Lantern (again, how has NOBODY CAUGHT THIS VILLAIN!? It’s been 8 episodes!?!) In gratitude, Green Fury gives Emily a button she can push to call her in case of emergency, which Emily happens to use during her first board meeting with Van when she needs a spokesperson to help sell a Wayne Security Poncho that has been failing in the marketplace. Though Green Fury is slightly annoyed to be called to something that is not a life-or-death situation, she trusts Emily for some reason and agrees to do a commercial as a favor, which impresses Emily’s bosses and Van.
They get to work on the commercial, and of course, they decide to take advantage of the female hero in their midst and rewrite all of Emily’s ideas and make it a sexy commercial about a nude Green Fury selling the poncho, which Emily is not happy about but reluctantly pitches to Green Fury anyway. Green Fury and Emily agree the commercial is not something they want to do, but hit upon the idea to trick Fury’s recent ex-boyfriend, the Olympian, into doing the commercial (since he is apparently some kind of PR whore) and he gladly nudes up for the commercial, allowing Green Fury to stride in at the end of the commercial and make the sales pitch, which makes for a good commercial according to the focus group Ron and Teddy show the video to at the end of the episode.
The B-stories this week include Jackie bringing her daughter to work as punishment because she punched a kid at school, and finding that her kid and Wendy have an instant bond, which annoys Jackie greatly. Jackie cannot get her daughter to admit why she punched the kid, but when Wendy easily finds out Jackie flips out at Wendy for befriending her daughter, wondering why her daughter would gets so close with someone who she basically calls a loser. Her daughter confesses that the person she punched said mean things about Jackie, and Wendy storms off, feelings hurt. Jackie eventually apologizes to Wendy and they discuss her daughter, with Wendy assuring Jackie that she is doing a good job with the kid.
Meanwhile, Teddy is annoyed that Emily is getting so close to Green Fury when he still has that crush on the hero, and he starts formulating plans to get her attention, including getting a very expensive jacket that he breaks into Ron’s first focus group to test, and learns that the ladies do not like on him. During the commercial shoot, he goes with a new ultra feminist persona to get Green Fury’s attention, complete with backstory where his mom died saving Christmas (and dark eyeliner), but fails once again, and has to be escorted from the area by Ron who feels sorry for his friend.
In the end, you could feel how hard the show was trying this episode, but it just was not working for me. At this point in the game, I do not have a lot of faith that NBC is going to stick with ‘Powerless’ for much longer, but you never know, stranger things have happened, and it still does have some potential. If they did get a 13 episode order for the first season, they still have 5 more episodes to work out the kinks and really prove themselves, and I think Green Fury is a far better hero for the show than Crimson Fox was, which could lead to better storylines, but we’ll have to wait and see how the writers work her into future stories. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed until the next episode that this episode was just a fluke and that they will continue the uphill trend they started with the previous few episodes.
See you back here for the next episode!
Nick is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, who belongs to the privileged few who enjoyed the ending to ‘Lost.’ For more of Nick’s thoughts and articles, follow him on Twitter.
