The Tick, Season 1, Episode 5: Fear of Flying
A pretty cool episode, this one, even if the first chunk is just Arthur trying to figure out how to pilot a high-tech moth suit on the fly. Literally on the fly. It's a fun bit, and, since the Tick is kind of a shit liar, Dot follows the Tick suit in trying to save Arthur. And it's honestly pretty funny seeing the Tick talk about how Arthur should embrace his destiny and not be, and I quote, "an ostrich feather in a hurricane", while Dot delivers a far more sane argument about, y'know, preserving Arthur's life. Other than the obvious comedy of the scene, it's also the two differing pulls in Arthur's life, one telling him to embrace superheroism, as stupid as it might sound, and the other is his very, very sane sister telling him to not risk his life at all. It's easy to turn Dot into an annoying party-pooper as many other superhero stories do, but considering Arthur, y'know, Dot is definitely the sane one in this conversation.
We also get the hilarious little subversion where Overkill, having grappled Arthur down to the ground (didn't the Tick describe Overkill as a 'zipline-ejaculating' dude last episode?) and about to have a rematch with the Tick... and Dot's heartfelt reunion (and punch) to Arthur basically took over the scene and Overkill's all like "nah, the moment's passed". That's funny.
Ramses shows up with an army, demanding the suit back... and Arthur, in front of everyone important, calls Ramses out that he's working for the Terror, he knows the Terror's alive... and he will never get the suit back. It's a stupid move, of course, because while he does have the Tick and Overkill hanging out with him, he himself is absolutely inexperienced in superheroing. Hell, even Dot whacking a random thug with a pipe meant that his sister has a higher knockout count than he did. The Tick makes fun of some supervillain cliches "You're going to say... kill them all!" "I was not!.... DESTROY them all!" and his talk about, no, he totally doesn't support Overkill's murdermachine methods.
Arthur and Dot's obvious care for each other is shown very well in this episode, and really, it's not hard to see why Dot's not going to want Arthur to go with the Tick and Overkill, no way, no how. He does, nonetheless, so there's the conflict between the siblings.
I completely forgot to talk about Dangerboat in whichever episode he shows up in, and I feel absolutely bad. Dangerboat is Overkill's sassy partner, basically what other superhero AI's like the Batcomputer or Jarvis would be if they weren't just sassy snarkers, but an actual roommate that nags about how you should eat out of a plate, plays loud music and shit... and his attempts to translate the scientist's words from Arthur's moth-suit is hilarious. "This is the best program I can find, jackass!" Oh, and absolutely, Tick has some pretty hilarious reactions to that. "Arthur, this man is having an argument with his boat!"
We also get to see a bit more Lint scenes. I just... don't find her ex-husband-slash-roommate very funny at all, and I thought the comedy sort of ground to a halt during that segment. Seeing Lint having to deal with static electricity fucking up her hair, and the sudden payoff that the Terror finally shows up for real outside of Arthur's visions, is pretty cool, though.
Oh, and we get a weird payoff to the throwaway line about how one of Walter's gifts last episode was a book written by a dog... only for this episode to reveal that the dog is actually Onward, a dog that's kept by a member of the Flag Five. A dog that wants everyone to know that he's an atheist now. Or something. That sequence was hilarious. Overall, a pretty big fan of the episode and the series in general.
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