Wonder Man S01E03 Review: Family Matters

Wonder Man, Season 1, Episode 3: Pacoima

This is another nice, slower-paced episode, although it does move things along. The episode starts off with Simon as a child surviving a burning kitchen without injuries, which is an early showcase of his superpowers. We also get a scene of the Damage Control department head yelling at Agent Cleary about how their department really needs to be capturing metahumans to justify an anti-metahuman prison, which is supposed to drive home how desperate (and assholish) they are. 

The episode then starts proper with Trevor being given an ultimatum and a mission from Cleary, to wiretap and infiltrate the birthday party of Simon's mother and get information about the childhood kitchen incident. Cleary has had enough of Trevor's methods, and wants results or else. 

The entire episode then just revolves around that -- seeing Trevor and Simon in the Williams family household, where Simon is a bit of a pariah in his extended family and friends. Only his mother really likes him, while his brother Eric alternates between being condescending or trying to get Simon to work for him. All of the other relatives and friends insult Simon either in Creole (assuming wrongly that Simon doesn't understand) or when asked by Trevor. 

Trevor himself is torn between trying to do his mission, as well as realizing how much Simon having a friend means to him and his mother. It's really nice seeing Trevor instinctively snap and defend Simon from some of his more horrible relatives, or when he clearly has second thoughts about the spy mission. A particularly strong scene is Trevor's moment with Simons' mother, who highlights Simon's loneliness despite his hobbies. 

That takes up most of the episode... until the end of the party, where Eric and Simon get into an argument. Simon gives a gift to his mother, but Eric isn't particularly impressed or happy that Simon is using money from his own mother to buy her a gift -- also noting his being fired from American Horror Story. While Eric's arguments do make sense, his demeaning methods aren't and it gets under Simon's skin enough that he ends up shattering the kitchen table in a massive eruption, before leaving. 

Trevor gets way more evidence than he probably would've needed, but of course ends up bonding with Simon even more. Simon apologizes to Trevor about his superpowers, and notes that he's been keeping it hidden due to an incident with 'Doorman' and superheroes in acting -- something covered in the next episode. But the combination of seeing how lonely Simon is, and how important the friendship is, causes Trevor to walk out of the car and destroy the wiretap. Which is not unexpected, but a nice one to see happen. The episode then ends with Simon announcing that the two of them had callbacks for the 'Wonder Man' movie. 

A slower but wholesome episode. I'm always up for any episode that explores the emotional trauma of extended family expectations and loneliness, but the Trevor spotlight was done quite well, building up neatly from the previous episode and delivered quite well here. I don't have a whole ton to add beyond the fact that this episode is executed quite well, I think. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner: 

• Simon's brother Eric Williams, in the comics, is the alter-ego of the Hydra-aligned supervillain the Grim Reaper. While the adversarial nature of the siblings were adapted into the MCU, the nature of it has been drastically changed.