Batman Beyond, Season 2, Episodes 16-18
Episode 16: The Last Resort
This one is... an interesting one? I feel like there's a huge attempt by the show-writers to try and go for a more 'troubled teenagers' series of storyline in this season, and not all of them, I feel, worked. "The Last Resort" here is honestly not an overly-interesting story on paper, and feels like it's a bit too on-the-nose at times, but I did really like how the episode itself told its story.
Granted, it is kind of hard to buy that there are so many negligent parents that stupidly just sign up their children in a behaviour-rehabilitation clinic that clearly dresses their charges up in prison orange jumpsuits and doesn't seem to allow the children to meet their parents too often -- and somehow, all the parents ignore anything that the children have to say. And that no parent, client or social services officer have actually seen what's going on here. But... okay. More fucked-up things have shown up in comics and, regrettably, real life.
The episode's plot is actually very well-scripted, suspension of disbelief aside. The founder of the clinic, David Wheeler, basically accepts a lot of troubled kids. One of said kids includes Chelsea Cunningham, recurring background character and Terry's friend, who, in probably one of the more haunting parts of the episode, got put in because she sent an e-mail to the school principal (who gets away scot-free!) complaining about the clinic, and the principal makes a call to her father, presumably making Chelsea out to be a truant or something.
The clinic itself also introduces us to a bunch of the children -- Chelsea's friend Adam, a former street artist that's rendered seemingly mute and near-catatonic after a procedure called "Iso", and is painting without ink on a blank canvas. And then we've got the sleazy Sean, who's a pretty nasty jerkball. As Batman investigates, turns out that the clinic's methods of rehabilitation is forcing everyone to stand in the hall, deprive them of sleep, and listening to Dr. Wheeler's speech about how they're worthless and they can only be saved by obeying him. Anyone who begs to sleep gets tossed into "Iso", the sensory deprivation chambers. Honestly... it's probably the most stupid way to rehabilitate a bunch of unruly teenagers -- society will drill in 'lack of sleep' into everyone eventually. But the way that the episode portrays it is admittedly pretty horrifying. There's also even a lack of any ulterior motive -- no scary Kobra cult trying to brainwash children as its minions or something. For all intents and purposes, Wheeler seems to think that this torture will make the kids disciplined, which I feel makes the sequence feel so much more sinister.
Terry then goes investigating in his civilian guise, but is denied entry with a falsified claim that Chelsea cancelled the visit. It's all just a roundabout way to get Terry captured by the staff, and I feel like this sequence is odd -- would the guards of the paranoid facility really not search Terry's backpack for the bat-suit, especially after they found him snooping around? Would there really be no cameras or personnel to see Chelsea talk to Terry in the vent? Would Terry's camera really just immediately replay the condemning recording immediately? Would Wheeler really wait until later in the day to shove Terry into Iso?
Still, I did like the sequence where Terry seems to gain an ally in Sean (who was the one who picked a fight with him and blew his cover), and after a "you can prove to the world you can be better" speech, the two of them attack the guards on the way to Iso, arrange a jailbreak, and Batman beats up the guards. We then get to see that Sean is about to murder Dr. Wheeler by tossing him off the rooftop as revenge for putting him into Iso, and Sean refuses to back down even though Batman points out that he could be a hero. Obviously it's a Batman episode, so Batman rescues Wheeler when he gets dropped, but it's a pretty sobering -- if fun -- twist that Sean really doesn't care about anything but revenge at this point.
The episode ends with an interesting scene -- Chelsea giving the cold shoulder to her father. Honestly, with the state that the correctional clinic really is, I'm surprised none of the other children are doing the same thing that Chelsea does. Ultimately I think the episode does try to do a bit too much, and maybe the episode would've worked better if it was just a Terry-investigates-a-clinic episode instead of "why does Batman have so much trouble"... but overall, an interesting one.
_______________________________
Episode 17: Armory
This is another one that feels pretty much lifted from a comic book run that is in its "stories for troubled teens" phase. Only that the main focus of this episode, interestingly, isn't the teenager! While Jared is certainly how Terry/Batman got roped into the plot, a significant focus of this episode centers around Jim Tate, the titular antagonist of the episode.
We've seen the Tates before in a Spellbinder episode, and they're basically a family that's perhaps a bit too extravagant for their own good, and Jim's implied to spend a lot to get into the good graces of his step-son, but they seem to be happy and ultimately kind people. And then Jim gets laid off at the beginning of the episode, right after the character establishing moment of buying his teenage son a brand-new sports car. It's neat to see a reference to the Wayne-Powers Corporation, but man, that scene as Jim gets laid off and tries his best to find work all over town is all too real. And through no fault other than miscommunication and perhaps an unwillingness to admit his problems, poor Jim has to juggle finding a new job and his wife thinking that they still have loads and loads of money to burn on fancy curtains.
It would be way too easy to just make Lorraine a spoiled rich bitch, too, wouldn't it? And while she certainly yaks on about fancy house remodeling and curtains and stuff, she also simply didn't know that her husband's situation was far, far worse than he was letting on.
Ultimately, Jim ends up falling in with a bad crowd, meeting with the shady Istivan Hegedesh, who has deals with foreign countries that would pay good money for a prototype weapon that Jim worked on while under the employ of Wayne-Powers. With allusions to how this would just 'be like war', Jim ends up donning a super-suit as what the media dubbed the 'Human Armory', beating down Batman and the police with an arsenal of non-lethal weapons. Again, I do really like just how sympathetic the writers made Jim, and just how much it's clear that he views it only as a means to end while Istivan continues to talk about how 'war must have casualties' and stuff.
Batman doesn't even really get involved until the second half of the episode, which is a storytelling method that I approve a lot of -- after a bit of a conversation with Jared, who bemoans Jim becoming distant and locking himself in the shed all the time, Terry and Max put two and two together. Still, even then, arguably the huge climax of the episode is the confrontation between Jim and Istivan, overheard by Jared... and Jim finally realizing that he's gone too far. We do get a superhero showdown, with Istivan wielding the prototype sonic cannon, and Jim using his own glue gun to help Batman out.
Again, while the plot itself honestly is pretty simple, I feel like the execution, and both the animation and voice acting for Jim Tate, really does end up making what is easily one of the most memorable antagonists from Batman Beyond.
_______________________________
Episode 18: Sneak Peek
Far, far less memorable is Ian Peek from this episode, although he isn't a bad villain per se. The episode begins with introducing Ian Peek, who's... a reporter that reveals damning, scandalous secrets of Gotham City's celebrities and elites. And there's an attempt at a moral throughout the episode with Mama McGinnis telling Terry that "it's not so funny if it's you on the show".
While his real superpower might be the ability to avoid the massive amount of lawsuits that his victims would undoubtedly throw his way, Ian Peek turns out to have a device that allows him to essentially become a 'ghost', turning into a dematerialized human being of glowing blue and black matter. It's an interesting concept, and it's also sort of interesting, I guess, that all Ian Peek wants to do is to do his job at exposing secrets... but he's otherwise so shallow that I really have a hard time taking him seriously. He ends up exposing that a triad crime boss is making a deal with D.A. Sam Young and... obviously, this lands him in a shootout with the triad.
Terry's own encounters with the mysterious glowing man and a vague pseudo-science lecture at school about the sci-fi trope that is phasing (hi, Flash!) ends up with Terry and Bruce figuring out that apparently, an old Wayne Enterprises employee, Nabuo Taka, actually developed such a device. And... and honestly, the idea that a rogue Wayne Enterprises tech is being used by a supervillain is kind of a great plot hook, but the fact that the episode basically already spoiled that the glowing man is, in fact, Ian Peek, means that this all ends up with a bit of a somewhat disappointingly underplayed side-plot.
While Batman saves Peek from the triad boss's goons, Peek ends up planting a camera on the Batmobile, and Peek sets up a teaser where he wants to reveal the true identity of Batman and his mysterious mentor -- and.... honestly, the blurring managed to fool all of Gotham City? Sure. I did really like that Bruce Wayne is pissed off that out of all the villains that the two Batmen have, it's some schmuck like Ian Peek that gets to do it. I also do like the moment where Terry tells Peek to leave Bruce Wayne out of it, considering just how much he's done to the city.
Turns out that Peek's usage of experimental science technology has side-effects, but ends up with his stomach slowly phasing out even without the belt. Peek cancels his show as his dematerializing becomes worse, and tries to make a deal with Bruce Wayne. It feels more of a convenient exposition more than anything (he killed Taka to steal the belt... to, uh, make tabloid scoops), but ultimately he phases through the ground and falls into the center of the Earth despite Batman's efforts to drag him out.
And... I dunno. It's a solid episode, honestly, but it's also pretty dry compared to the previous two. Still enjoyable, though!
_______________________________
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- In episode 16, Terry briefly mentions renegade synthoids (Cynthia from "Terry's Friend Dates a Robot") and 'living heads', which is a nod to Mr. Freeze from "Meltdown".
- The Tate family first appeared as victims in "Spellbound".
- Paxton Powers is name-dropped as one of the reason that Jim is fired, and also has a cameo in "Sneak Peek" where he has some fun with a bunch of scantily-clad ladies. Honestly, that's hardly a 'scandal' for a rich man like him.
- The boxer in "Sneak Peek" re-uses the character model of one of Clayface's disguises from TNBA's "Growing Pains" episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment