Batman Beyond, Season 2, Episode 13-15
Episode 13: Terry's Friend Dates a Robot
Instead, all we got is a pretty simple and frankly quite disappointing story about a yandere robot girlfriend. And there's nothing wrong with the concept, it's just that the story never really moves beyond the most basic parts of the story. Terry's classmate Howard Groote is trying too hard to be cool even though he's a dork, he follows Terry to a synthoid factory (Terry is buying robots for training; turns out Old Man Bruce has synthoids of his old rogues' gallery), buys an illegal robot girlfriend from Louie, and then struts around school because he suddenly becomes super-duper popular. And then his synthoid girlfriend Cynthia gets overly possessive of him, and starts shoving lockers around to beat up Nelson and gets super-duper crazy during a party. Batman fights her, then the house blows up, and Groote gets in trouble with his parents.
And... and honestly, that's about it. There are a couple of fun bits in the episode, of course -- the cameos of the TNBA villains as robots is neat. There's a couple of wink-wink-older-audience jokes in it too as Chelsea mistakes Howard's argument with Cynthia as something more intimate. And I'm not sure how they managed to sneak in Max's "robo-bimb" line, but they sure did. Again, as annoying as the voice was, the voice actor for Howard is a neat balance of being a loser and trying to show off, and the scripting is at least a fun parody of regular teenage dramas. It's just that there's really nothing else beyond that, and this really feels like something that should probably be reduced to half an episode's worth of backup plot at best.
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Episode 14: Eyewitness
This is actually an alright episode on paper, even if there's a huge sense of "been there, done that". Not just in comparing this to better mind-control illusion episodes in Batman or Justice League either, but I honestly feel like we've had better Spellbinder episodes before.
The concept is interesting enough -- Batman and Commissioner Gordon are butting heads, not helped by the cold open showing us a very realistic sequence of Batman jumping and absolutely foiling a sting operation that the GCPD is doing. All the scenes between Old Man Bruce and Old Commissioner Barbara are very, very fun to watch, and even if they never really spell out what caused the rift between the two (and what Terry's criminal record entails).
But when Mad Stan attempts to blow up a massive building and kill Barbara's husband DA Sam Young, Batman seemingly snaps and kills Mad Stan. Obviously it's something that wouldn't happen -- and the episode makes it very, very clear. There's no ambiguity, and I kinda feel like it would've helped the episode a bit if we actually see Terry being just a bit more violent or angry even if he (obviously) didn't kill Mad Stan. Mad Stan being actually pretty funny with his bro-esque "down with the corruption, man" vernacular also makes him a fun villain to watch that makes you go oh-shit even if he's, y'know, a terrorist.
But, well, the lack of any ambiguity honestly just ends up with the whole episode with Batman running around trying to avoid Barbara while he and Old Man Bruce try to prove Terry's innocence. And... and honestly, it's not that interesting to hold the whole episode, I'm sorry. It would've helped a lot more if Terry's innocence was actually ambiguous (even though he obviously wouldn't murder), and if we see a bit more of Barbara's internal conflict. There are a couple of great moments, like Barbara's resoluteness in taking down what she views to be a murderer even if it means ruining Bruce, Barbara and Sam's lives in the process. The action scenes, especially the rooftop bit, was pretty fun... but ultimately, again, the episode feels like it's dragged on a bit too long.
Quite literally with a minute or two to spare, Bruce figures out that it's Spellbinder, who somehow is also able to hypnotize everyone into not seeing him; has inserted the hallucination into Barbara's mind, and Barbara is immediately willing to forgive Terry afterwards and we get a pretty truncated apology and wrap-up to everything. Honestly, even with the simple explanation that Spellbinder is pouncing on Barbara's dislike of Batman, I really did feel like the themes explored in this episode could easily be edited to feel far, far more poignant.
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Another one of featuring a recurring villain, this one is... a bit of a more divisive one for me. On paper, there are a lot of things about this episode that I like. A fair amount of world-building about the Society of Assassins? A villain-on-villain battle, which also involves Batman being blackmailed to help one of the villains? A significant focus on Max as a sidekick without superpowers, as well as her smarts? A surprisingly interesting subversion of how a non-superpowered sidekick can help out, when Max is absolutely out of her depth against someone like Curare? Heck, we even get a fun, Batman: The Animated Series style of fights that involve ridiculously huge props in the final battle in the museum of weapons.
And yet... "Final Cut" feels like it's not quite there. Don't get me wrong, it's still a very enjoyable episode. As I said, the concept of infighting between the Society of Assassins leading Batman to get dragged in as what's essentially a blackmailed bodyguard is a very interesting one; as is a focus episode on Max that isn't just her being involved with the civilian side of the world of Batman Beyond. They even got Tim Curry to give Mutro Botha a very fun, wacky accent.
And yet... I dunno. So much of the episode felt like it's just lacking. The plot itself is pretty simple after the setup, and proceeds basically how you imagined it would. A lot of things never quite get addressed -- why Curare is perfectly happy on blowing up the city, or why she's going around turning the Society of Assassins' members into brain-dead vegetables instead of killing them... the fact that Curare is almost completely silent throughout the entire episode doesn't help. Also, while I know that there's a degree of accepted unrealism that comes with the territory, Max's investigation somehow finding that the international assassin is careless enough to drop a credit card that could be scanned by a high schooler's laptop feels like it's stretching a civilian's techno-whiz skills a bit too far.
Still... other than those complaints, it's honestly a rather solid one. Batman and Mutro Botha has a very fun friction-filled working relationship, and I do really like the realism behind Max's earlier panic and guilt after her little fuck-up, and her elation in the final scene of the episode when she's riding the saved-the-city high. Thanks to the locations of the fights in this episode (Curare vs. Devon on an airplane in the cold open; and later Curare against Batman in the museum) it's also one of the prettier and more exciting episodes to simply watch for the simple fighty-fighty. I still think that "Final Cut" does lack a certain je ne sais quoi that makes me feel that it's not quite as good as it could've been, but it's definitely a very solid one nonetheless.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- At the beginning of episode 13, Terry fights robots of the Riddler, Two-Face and Killer Croc, all using their The New Batman Adventures character models.
- The GoleM (or, rather a GoleM) makes a brief cameo in the synthoid factory.
- Episode 14 has Bruce and Barbara make a brief reference to Alfred, who, of course, is the best at making tea and crumpets.
- Mad Stan returns after being a minor antagonist in the episode "Rats". So does Spellbinder's VR bubble from "Hooked Up".
- The monocled member of the Society of Assassins, Devon, is also Curare's handler in her debut episode.
- In a rather odd bit, the final scene of "Final Cut", involving a character disarming a bomb by ripping it out at the last minute and then saying "Can we go home now?" is exactly what Batgirl did in the TNBA episode "Sins of the Father".
I haven't seen Eyewitness since I was a kid and I know real life Vigilantes are likewise hated by real law enforcement, but even back then, the sheer vehemence with which the police pursued Batman seemed odd to me.
ReplyDeleteIts not as if Mad Stan was a normal criminal or Batman killed him when he was being led away by the police, he just tried to commit a meaningless act of terrorism but attempting to kill hundreds of people and bragged he'd do it again. Basically what I mean is its not a normal circumstance as it was in the heat of the moment in battle.
Again I'm not someone to defend vigilante killings, but you'd think there'd be higher priorities for Gotham's police.
Also why didn't anyone check for the body, did they explain that? I'm just overthinking things now.
It's honestly kind of a very common superhero trope that was prevalent in the comics and cartoons of the time -- it wasn't until the Spider-Man movies and the MCU that the "super-heroes work well or at least are tolerated by the authorities" trope ended up being the norm rather than the exception. Besides, vigilantes like Batman tended to fight more down-to-earth enemies than someone like Superman or Green Lantern who fights metahumans and aliens.
DeleteA lot of live-action or comic-book stories really do the vigilante-vs-police stories a lot more justice, and there's only really so much you could do in a cartoon, I feel, without really upsetting the censors. After all, even though the episode itself explains things, you can't really have Batman looking *too* evil on-screen. It's weird censorship, really, I guess to avoid the Little Timmies out there seeing 'Batman' brutally murder someone in cold blood and get traumatized by it.
Also, as the many, many showcases of buildings crashing down in this season of Batman Beyond, this season was aired before the 9/11 attacks, and Mad Stan is meant to be a funny parody of a villain trope that no one expected to be taken as seriously as it would be a couple of years later. It's honestly kind of jarring to see someone going around ranting about blowing up buildings being played for laughs (Stan doesn't even have a funny gimmick the way someone like Joker or Riddler would!) considering how safe a lot of cartoons have been playing it with that particular topic.
Also, I think a good chunk of the focus is also that it was specifically Barbara Gordon there yelling at Batman to stop. Barbara lets Batman operate in her town after a lot of implied bad blood between her and Bruce, and the earlier cold open sequence showing that Barbara's very close to revising her opinions on Batman. She feels, in a way, responsible for what happened, both as a quasi-ally and secret-keeper to Terry and Bruce, as well as being the police commissioner.
They checked the body! But Spellbinder basically fooled everyone when the 'body' was being transported, stole the body from the morgue (Terry checked it, and the body was missing) and shoved the real Stan in a hypno-bubble thing. It's kind of a bit of a stretch and trying to think too much about the logistics of how Spellbinder does it is kind of odd, but I guess hypnotism powers do get you a lot of leeway for handwaving the ability to do things in the background.
They want things to be harder for the main characters, so I presume thats why the cops become more competent when its the protagonist they're chasing and not a random criminal who has done worse?
DeleteCensorship is probably a reason too, as you said.
Well they did explain the morgue thing, I'm glad they at least took the body in.
I've always thought that the police force in places like Gotham are always relatively competent in hunting down regular criminals. Plus, both Batmen are clearly pulling their punches against the police, right? Clearly the police are going to have a less-frustrating time hunting these vigilantes who aren't willing to go full-out compared to someone like, say, Blight or Shriek or whoever.
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