The Tick, Season 1, Episode 10: Risky Bismuth
This episode is the big 'everything comes together' episode. Last episode ended with Superion showing up at their base, and the show quickly establishes that he's coming down with Big Bismuth poisoning. Karamazov ends up being the funnily-accented exposition dumper as he quickly tells us where the Big Bismuth comes from -- the Terror and his agents have injected the VLM with the Big Bismuth before exposing him to the enlargement beam, and throughout this episode the cast wonders just how Superion is being poisoned when he's in a city far away from the VLM. I do like Superion as a concept. He's a silly, crazy man who sometimes comes off as unempathic or straight-up in cuckoo-land. While the show could've just as easily portrayed Superion as a callous jackass that's antagonistic or too proud to accept help from the Z-lister superheroes, the moments of lucidity that Superion has in this episode as he speaks with Arthur notes that he's as much a superhero as Tick and Arthur, only wanting to help people. He just has the same amount of nonsensical mind as Tick does.
Karamazov, now placed in a robotic suit built by Tinfoil Hat Kevin (oh, that Kevin) ends up in a far better mood than the previous episode to exposit, and while Arthur is subjected to some unnecessary sob-backstory, the stuff about Big Bismuth and the Terror's plans are told to us. Karamazov's experiments to attempt to solve world hunger by creating an enlargening ray ended up in disaster when his machine blew up during a demonstration -- with the unexpected side effect that the meteoric fragments Karamazov used ending up hurting Superion, who was present at the time. Also, Karamazov ended up being shrunken during the explosion. The Terror kidnapped him afterwards, and we learn how the Big Bismuth was placed within the VLM's body to cause him to grow. That's all well and good, but we later learn how Arthur and Tick end up fitting into all this. Their attack on the weapons shipment in the pilot episode also had the side effect of destroying all of Karamazov's research, setting back the Terror's plans significantly.
Meanwhile, speaking of the Terror, while he's waiting for Lint to do her part of his master plan, he's still in the Cola company trying to come up with the best way to announce his big return to the world. It involves pigs. And a maniacal chuckle. And a selfie sent to Lint. Superion's one advice to Arthur is that the Terror's plans never really make sense, which... yeah, I can see that.
Meanwhile, the Tick goes on a bit of a brooding mood (which lasts for all of a minute) as he realizes that, no he's not a robot, and a cheering up session from Arthur about how he is able to accept destiny's call and has free will cheers him up. Also, we get a bit of a "SPOON" joke thrown in, which is a neat callback to the cartoon.
Checking in with Overkill and Dot, they're hunting down Ms. Lint, who is trying to take over a big radio building. Overkill and Dot's sequences are well-acted enough, although nowhere quite as hilarious as the rest of the cast. We've got your requisite romantic tension thrown in, as Overkill gets tortured by Lint, and Lint uses her electrical power to summon the Very Large Man towards the city, for a final showdown to kill Superion. It's pretty cool, and I do like just how impressive the VLM effects are... as much as a giant naked man can be impressive, anyway.
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