The Tick S01E12 Review: Kung Fu Stepdad

The Tick, Season 1, Episode 12: The End Of The Beginning (Or The Start Of The Dawn Of The Age Of The Superhero)

(Can I just say how much I love the title? Because I do.)

The season finale of Tick's first season is pretty neat! Of course, it's already a given that the moth-trigger rigged by Karamazov would work, because there's no way Arthur's going to die at the end of this first season. It's one hell of a tense scene getting there, though. As Arthur waits for Karamazov's trigger to load or whatever, Superion himself shows up, still sort of hungover (or maybe that's how Superion normally is, I dunno), intent on rescuing Arthur from the VLM. Of course, despite the big explosion, everyone survives. Even Overkill, who apparently went into for-reals cardiac arrest but manages to grit through an entire conversation with SHEER BADASSERY which I think is low-key the funniest scene in this episode. 

Of course, everyone is happy except for the Terror, who proceeds to take things into his own hands, as a supervillain is wont to. The god damned giant T from his Cola company building is apparently a fucking supervillain ship, because of course it is. That's pretty damn awesome. His plan to announce his return with Superion's death foiled, he decides to get personal and kill Arthur's family. He also is apparently aware of Lint's attempts to try and get together with Overkill, and activates power-nullifying bracelets that grounds Lint. I do like the tension between Terror and Lint. The two are shown to really care for each other in a teacher-student way, with a not-insignificant amount of hero worship from Lint and Terror clearly valuing Lint's opinions... but at the same time, Terror did leave Lint dry for decades, causing Lint to move on somewhat and mature free from the Terror's influence. And this culminates in Lint going into a two-man escape pod and escaping without Terror when things get rough for the villains. And Terror even admits that "she got me good". 

(The fact that the escape pod is a lower-case letter 't' is the second funniest thing in the episode.)

Speaking of things getting rough for the villains, how awesome is it for the Tick to just jump straight from the building and quite literally rip the goddamn T-ship apart? That's just badass. Equally badass is Arthur charging in against the masked, voiceless, faceless goons and start zapping them with his brand-new taser hands, but most surprisingly is the fact that Walter, who's been treated mostly as a source of 'awkward family member' jokes, shows off that he apparently knows some kung-fu, taking out an entire squad of supervillain mooks in the same time that Arthur used his taser-hands to take down an equal amount of people. 

And when Arthur finally gets to confront the Terror, he ends up with a gun pointed to his head. The Terror gives this whole rant about how he doesn't really care about some master plan and just goes with the rhythm (actually giving those drum scenes earlier this season some context, I guess), sort of like a less "fuck everyone up" version of the Joker, but more of a "eh, I don't give a fuck" version of an anarchist. Arthur and Terror has a bit of a stand-down... but Superion finally swoops in and saves the day, freezing the Terror with his freeze breath and, naturally, getting all the credit because he's the one visibly shown to take down the Terror. Arthur and Tick just disappear back into the crowd, with Superion basking in all the adulation.

I really do like Superion. He's been portrayed as this aloof jerk (or an inadvertent jerk, anyway) all season long, but his moments of lucidity these past few episodes where he notes that he just got really careless and ended up basking in the adulation of the public regarding his ultimate takedown of the Terror that he just ends up lapping it up... but he's still ultimately an altruistic good guy. It's interesting and honestly makes him feel quite human. 

We get a reunion scene between Arthur, Dot and their parents, and Walter gives a neat little speech about how everyone's been treating Arthur as a neurotic little shit and that's what he became until he met the Tick, who believed he could be something better. We get some acknowledgement from Overkill that he's okay with all this happening. Midnight the cute doggo shows up to 'shake' Arthur, apologize, and warn them that they're now being watched. The final scene of the episode are a bunch of Aegis drones tracking Arthur and Tick, which is pretty cool. Overall, it's hardly a perfect ending to the season, but god damn if this season of Tick is perhaps one of the most funny and entertaining season of superhero TV that I've seen. 

The Tick S01E11 Review: Science Is Not Exact Science

The Tick, Season 1, Episode 11: The Beginning of the End

So we get a bit of clarification about the whole VLM/Superion plot here, with the reason that Superion being super-dizzy and alternating between knocked-out and barely-lucid is because apparently the Tick is covered from head to toe (as well as in some... other regions, as Kevin notes) in Big Bismuth when he blew up the Terror's factory all the way in the first episode, and it actually sort of makes sense that Superion only falls down when Arthur and the Tick show up in the apartment. And since we, the audience, mostly follow Arthur and the Tick's POV, it's a clever bit of foreshadowing that makes absolute sense. 

We also get the explanation of the one other thing about this whole-blown conspiracy not mentioned in the previous episode, which is the role of Arthur's moth suit. The Terror has built in a transmitter into the moth suit, which is why he allowed Arthur to abscond with it. The transmitter would cause the VLM to explode, destroying the city and unleashing a lot of Big Bismuth to kill Superion in the process. So yeah, it's a crazy plan, but there's a sense of dark sociopathy in that the Terror knowingly picked Arthur out for his connection with the whole Terror/Flag Five tragedy -- probably the same reason the Terror chose the dude that found his teeth to become the VLM. 

What the Terror didn't count on was Arthur allying himself with Karamazov, someone who can explain what the shit's going on. And Karamazov modifies the switch to shrink the VLM instead of blowing him up. And when Arthur asks him what the chances of it working is, Karamazov gives us that glorious quote ("science is not exact science, you know?"). The Tick is pretty reasonably indignant about this, knowing that Arthur cannot withstand explosions, and demands that he wear the suit -- but, y'know, he's a giant. And this is the crux of Arthur's storyline in this season. He's finally outgrown his cowardice and his desire to be involved but as quickly hand it over to the authorities, and embrace the mantle of being a hero. It's a pretty awesome moment as Arthur and Tick show up inn the pathway of the VLM (who, again, despite the rather spotty CGI still manages to work reasonably well).

Oh, and Arthur's parents are in the same city that the VLM is charging to, which Tick notes with a "goodness, more stakes!"

Meanwhile, Lint and Overkill explore their past relationship -- they were once in love, but Lint used her relationship with Straight Shooter to gain access codes to fuck up the Flag Five (was it the same fuck-uppery that caused the Flag Five's death?). It's a fair bit of well-acted emotion thrown in some torture scene, layered above the love triangle between Lint, Overkill and Dot. It's interesting that Lint sees an out in having Overkill kill Terror, showing that Lint might actually betray the Terror at some point in the series. Dot shows up to save Overkill with the tried-and-true usage of water to disable an electrical supervillain (apparently no one writing these superhero movies ever played Pokemon), all the while muttering about how the two of them really do need therapy. Dot's awesome. I like her. 

Overall, a pretty smashing build-up to the first season's finale. This episode is mostly about wrapping up the character developments of Arthur, Overkill and Dot, but I don't mind it. It's still one hell of a fun episode and a great setup piece at that. 

The Tick S01E10 Review: Mad Science (or how everything fits together)

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. 

The Tick S01E09 Review: In Which A Boat Flirts With A Man

The Tick, Season 1, Episode 9: My Dinner With Android

This episode features some... weird-yet-hilarious shenanigans as Dangerboat attempts to court Arthur, initially by prodding and massaging him in the shower and later just really coming on to him. It's funny, even though I'm not sure if it's sort of offensive to gays, in the sort of dated "oh, look at the gay man trying to flirt with a straight man" jokes? I'm hardly qualified to really commentate on these sort of things, though, because a boat voiced by Alan Tudyk trying to flirt with anyone is inherently hilarious. 

Anyway,  Arthur is driven off to do everything on his own, pissed off at Overkill's attitude, Dangerboat's flirting and just plain telling Dot and her non-superhero butt to go home. He and Tick end up facing off against a different antagonist in this episode, agents of the Urmanian government hunting down Dr. Karamozov. Tick ends up getting obsessed with the Urmanian killer robot Backup (no, really) and starts thinking that, he, too is a newer model robot, because they're both muscular, strong, blue and have glorious, glorious chins. It's funny, for sure, but it brings up Tick's main motivation that has been kind of brushed aside since his initial debut -- Tick is still looking for his origin story, and while he's happy to assist Arthur in all his heroics, I do like the show acknowledging in its own funny manner Tick's own motivations and goals. 

Karamozov ends up being more of an ally now, and we brush off the earlier dick-punching bit as Karamozov just being a bit to panicked to stick around. Oh, and Karamozov's attempts to revert himself to normal ends up just enlarging his head (and making his poor, poor neck muscles suffer), causing Arthur to end up running around to hide Karamozov in a baby stroller. 

Tinfoil-hat Kevin ends up being, as mentioned, highly competent, popping up in convenient moments to help out Arthur, first by showing off his impeccable home-improvement skills, then by fixing the moth antenna on Arthur's suit, and later showing up in the climax to help Arthur do a swap between Karamozov and some groceries, causing the Urmanian agent lady to blow up an empty stroller. He's essentially became an eccentric version of the hypercompetent superhero ally that mostly stays in the base, like your Alfred or your Jarvis or your Cisco Ramon.  Also, he apparently lives in a disembodied giant robot head, which is just fucking awesome.

And while Arthur, Tick and Kevin (mostly just Arthur) try to entangle Karamozov's story about the Terror's master plan, Superion himself shows up at Arthur's apartment after realizing that the VLM is the random dude that found the Terror's teeth so many years ago, leading some credence to some sort of weird, crazy plan by the Terror. Superion shows up... and collapses. Whoops!

Speaking of the Terror, apparently the next stage of his master plan is to take over a Cola company, claiming that he founded the company and slits the throat of the current manager and demand they market their next campaign around him. Unlike the weird "TEACH ME DRUMS" bit in episode 7, I found this scene to be so much more funny for two reasons. Firstly, because it seems that this is going to tie in with the rest of the Terror's insane plans and not just a random scene to show off Terror's eccentricities, and because it's a neat combination of Terror's ridiculousness in his plan to, y'know, use a soda company to 'market' him and the callousness of murdering people.  

The one other plotline going on in this episode is Dot and Overkill, who has some definite romance blooming between them. Dot goes back to Overkill to return his gun ("Shakira!"), and while the scene sets up for some "silly woman, you know nothing about manly superheroing!" Overkill actually criticizes her with the intention to allowing her to improve, picking out a new gun better suited to Dot's frame and teaching her how to properly shoot. And we get to the trope-y "touching someone to correct their posture" sexual tension scene, which Overkill flat-out refuses to do despite Dot's blatant permission, because he's been burnt in love by someone... who turns out to be Ms. Lint if the episode's cut is accurate. 

Overall, a pretty strong episode, and I'm definitely excited to see all the disparate storylines finally coming on together.

The Tick S01E08 Review: The Origins of the Very Large Man (oh, also Overkill I guess)

The Tick, Season 1, Episode 8: After Midnight

This episode starts off with what I didn't quite realize was a flashback to the origin story of the Very Large Man, with a sequence showing the otherwise normal Clifford Richter being abducted by what seems to be the Terror's minions and transformed into a big buck-ass nude colossus. And as we cut away to Superion and VLM's wife, Superion's constant mispronunciation of words (skyscraper instead of landscaper, etc) is just so hilarious. We don't really check in with Superion and VLM anywhere in this episode afterwards, so we're just led to assume that it's all happening in the background.


Meanwhile, Tick and Overkill, naturally, survive, but Overkill brusquely brushes everyone off, hilariously arguing about his methods with Dot while he's calling an Uber, which I thought is the best and most surreal comedy in this episode. It's a bit of a disappointment that Arthur essentially tells Dot to stay home and not participate in all this superhero hijinks, although the scene with Dot practicing (and epic-fail-ing) to use a handgun might mean that she'll have a bigger role in the future.

Tick and Arthur decide to try and tell Superion about the terror being alive and how he's figured out Superion's weakness, but after a run-in during a book signing bit with Midnight the talking superhero dog (a character introduced earlier this season but I COMPLETELY forgot about, meaning the big pan-up to reveal Midnight's form earn a huge LOL from me). Arthur's attempts to go "Terror is back! Warn Superion!" is obviously met with a haha-lunatic response, and we get some weird stepfather drama thrown in as Arthur lashes out at (and later apologizes to) his embarrassing stepfather Walter.

After a bit of creative deduction when seeing Overkill's robot arm, and attempting to ignore Tick's newfound obsession with Midnight's book, Arthur confronts the Overkill about his role as a 'hanger-on' for the Flag Five, Straight Shooter, which gives Overkill's whole hard-ass no-nonsense and borderline death-seeker persona some actual depth, which I definitely did not expect. Overkill is contrasted very well with Arthur -- both being survivors from a tragedy, who has had vengeance shape their entire life since that point, but their personalities are polar opposites. Overkill is also somewhat contrasted with Midnight, with Overkill being the 'sidekick' of the Flag Five and Midnight being the 'mascot', but nothing really comes out of this beyond the sheer hilarity of a dude arguing with a talking dog in a book signing and then fighting it out.

Overkill's also handed over his life to the Tick in some sort of weird samurai "you saved my life, so my life is yours as repayment" code, to which the Tick just says "neat! Don't kill, m'kay?" to which Overkill just has the most deadpan I-have-make-a-huge-mistake reaction. That's hilarious. Also hilarious is Alan Tudyk's Dangerboat, which I think might just be the best character in this show.

Oh, and Lint takes over the Pyramid Gang. That's... that's okay, I guess? I completely forgot the Pyramid Gang exists. It is a bit weird that the Terror doesn't show up at all for the entirety of the episode after  the previous one starred him so much. It's a bit of a weird scene that's done pretty seriously as opposed to the comedy of everything else, but it's cool. 

The Tick S01E07 Review: Tick Returns

The Tick, Season 1, Episode 7: Tale of the Crypt

We're back with the Tick! It took me a bit longer to return to reviewing the Tick since its mid-season break last year. And it's just... it's just fun, yeah? The Tick is equal parts a parody of superhero conventions while at the same time committed to actually playing the conflict within the story that Arthur and company faces really straight. That said, I felt that episode 7 was a bit of a miss for me. That's not to say the writing is bad, though, because Arthur, Tick, Overkill, Dot and Dangerboat are all as hilarious as ever, but there were times where the comedy and pacing seems odd. Dangerboat and Tick are 100% always funny, though. The episode is basically "Arthur in the Terror's base", with his capture being the crux of the mid-season cliffhanger, and here... he just runs around and sort of interacts with everyone, while Tick, Overkill and Dot race in to rescue him from the Terror's base. 

I'm not sure I'm as enamoured as the Terror as I'm supposed to be. Jackie Earle Haley is an amazing actor, of course, but there are times -- like Terror playing the drums -- that it seems that we're having a "look at this eccentric villain!" thrown in there for no real reason other than to be weird. It's me nit-picking, of course, as The Tick isn't a super-serious show, but still. 

Meanwhile, Arthur gets freed by a seemingly-sympathetic Ms. Lint from his cell, only to find out that it's actually under Terror's orders. Arthur ends up meeting the enigmatic Dr. Karamazov, who... is tiny! Arthur ends up playing hero, grabbing his suit and freeing Karamazov, not aware that his little superhero game is all orchestrated by the Terror. It all ends up sort of coming against Arthur, though, because Karamazov punches him in the dick once he's free, and runs away. The episode ends with the evil lair blowing up, with Arthur escaping just as the Tick and Overkill goes in. I'm sure they're all going to be fine since we still have half a season to go. Overall, it's more of a 'get things in order' bit, and while I do think that the bit with Arthur as the Terror's prisoner didn't end up panning out that much beyond allowing Arthur the crucial information that Superion actually has a weakness -- a Kryptonite analogue called Big Bismuth. Oh well. It's still pretty enjoyable to watch. Bring on the rest of the season! 

The Tick S01E06 Review: Superion vs. Very Large Man

The Tick, Season 1, Episode 6: Rising

So, the first half-season of the Tick climaxes with a surprisingly heartfelt 'superheroes save a bus of innocents' scene. For a series that tends to make fun of the genre, the Tick straddles a pretty well-done line of telling an actually engaging superhero story while still making fun of the tropes involved.

The episode starts off with a bit of a payoff to the Superion and Very Large Man, with Superion's plan to deal with the VLM being a bunch of paper cards with the words "YOU ARE TO BIG!!" written on them. And he's all snippy to the military dudes around, telling them that, no, they'll not fire on a civilian. Superion himself isn't actually doing anything to help out, though, because he has to appear on an interview. And apparently his powers include transforming a cup of shit coffee into pumpkin spice latte. Mmm...

Of course, Superion himself is mostly irrelevant. He's in the background all the time, hailed as the best hero of all the, the one-all-and-be-all of the superheroes in this universe. Because, as Overkill and Arthur deduces at the end of the episode, why everyone wants so much to get the suit that Arthur is wearing is because it's a weapon to be used against aliens -- Superion, they assume.

But, of course, that's the end of the episode. The main bulk of the episode deals with two plot threads -- Ms. Lint meeting the Terror and learning that he's alive, as well as the Tick and Arthur figuring out what to do with Ramses, who they apprehended last episode. Overkill's attempts at using a truth serum backfires hilariously because, hey truth serums have contra-indications, and they apparently don't work on someone consuming viagra. That's funny. Overkill wants to just storm the Terror's hideout, guns blazing and take out the Terror himself. The Tick, likewise, wants the same thing, minus the murder, because he wants Arthur to reach his full potential of being a superhero.

Arthur? As much as he wants to do the right thing, his game plan is the far saner one of handing Ramses over to AEGIS, the bureaucratic agency that deals with superheroes, referenced a couple of times in the previous episodes. It's pretty damn dumb of them to literally walk Ramses down in the middle of the street, though. "If the call's going to be a long one, can I sit?" Predictably, Ramses gets away, his thugs shoot the Tick with a bazooka (which is actually a pretty cool scene in a series where the special effects tend to be on the low budget side) and then shoot him where it hurts -- in the civilians.

The rescue scene is mostly played straight, even if we get a few laughs thrown in, and the civilians are happy that their unnamed town now has heroes again. 

Oh, and there's a little subplot about how Dot, after seeing the aftermath of Arthur's vacuum-cleaner fight with Lint, decides to call him and wanting to join... but Arthur refuses. Okay, then. More plot points to be picked up in the rest of the season.

Meanwhile, the other half of the episode focuses on Ms. Lint and the Terror, which is a far more interesting pair than Lint's past scenes with Derek. Derek himself gets shot with platypus toxin darts by the Terror, who also reveals to us that Derek's actually just the wi-fi guy in their old evil lair. The Terror gives this whole speech about how he's disappointed because he expected Lint to go and find him, not kowtow to Ramses, and that he's been watching her every move. Or, well, "tried to, but you got so boring so fast."

The Terror plays the disappointed but supportive mentor role here. I'm not sure how much of his bullshit of actually believing in Ms. Lint's potential is heartfelt and how much is just bullshit to get her on his good graces again, but it's not like he doesn't have a point. By the end of the episode, Lint got back enough of her self-confidence to become the most terrifying woman on earth again, going up against Ramses and murdering him in his desk.

Oh, and the Terror kidnaps Arthur outside of the convenience store at the end of the episode, causing the Tick to roar his name to the heavens... and for Arthur to wake up in the Terror's lair with the Terror's face swooping in and speaking in that nasal, wheezy voice of his "CLIFFHANGER!" It's all pretty good stuff, with some neat comedic beats even in moments that are serious -- Overkill going "hey, HEY I'm talking to you, asshole!" when Arthur gets kidnapped is absolutely hilarious.

Overall, I'm looking forward to when the show picks up in 2018 or whenever. It's not a show that really demands a lot from you to watch -- it's just funny, with a plot that's fun enough to follow, but not too simple, a well-crafted universe, and generally fun comedic beats and acting all around. Good stuff.

The TIck S01E05 Review: Instruction Manual

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. 

The Tick S01E04 Review: Walter's Party

The Tick, Season 1, Episode 4: Party Crashers

This episode begins with wrapping up last episode's cliffhanger of the Tick falling out of the window. And, of course, the big man is fine (you're really stupid if you think a fall from a building is going to kill the Tick) but the way that they showed his train of thought as he fell and grabbed onto a flag pole, and Overkill's subsequent reactions, before absconding with Arthur's little conspiracy investigation stuff, is pretty funny.

This episode's a lot more focused on the comedy even compared to the previous episodes, now that all the whole 'will you answer the call of destiny' questions from the Tick has been answered with a meek "eeeeh, I guess" by Arthur. Oh, and also the fact that people are telling him that the Terror is alive -- Overkill believing it is so kind of riles up Arthur. We learn a couple of names like Project Achilles and Doctor Karamazov and stuff, and one thing leads to another... and the Tick crashes on Arthur's place for the night. This leads to him letting a homeless dude, Tinfoil Kevin, into Arthur's apartment, and later on when Arthur has to show up at his foot-obsessed stepfather's birthday party and deal with a gajilion questions from everyone who isn't Dot about his episode... the Tick, naturally shows up and... he doesn't exactly make a fool of himself, actually, but Arthur clearly doesn't want him around. Arthur doesn't want him there, and neither does Dot (who thinks the Tick is a bad influence, if not a criminal per se).

Oh, and Lint also shows up at the party, because the moth suit or whatever has bonded to Arthur. And of course the Tick doesn't recognize her, despite repeated attempts by Arthur to get him to notice. Lint gets Arthur to wear the suit, except the instructions for the suit is in another language... and confirmation that Lint wants to hunt down the Terror herself makes Arthur finally decide to fight back. He did at least manage to get the hell away from Lint by sheer luck and a vacuum cleaner (which neutralizes Lint's electricity attacks somehow?). But Ramses's people are coming, Lint has stumbled out of the house in pursuit of Arthur... who's flapping around on the moth suit because he can't really control it. This is Arthur finally showing his backbone after three episodes of being basically a victim, realizing that he does need to keep the suit away from the bad guys' hands.

There is also a weird subplot running in the background of Superion, majestic guardian of Earth, having to fly down and deal with a giant naked man. Oh, and a weird scene of Lint having to deal with her irritating ex-husband who still shares the house with her which I really felt wasn't as funny as the rest of the episode. 

The episode is a lot sillier, but we do get a lot more Tick and the dude's absolutely hilarious. Between the comedy and Arthur going through some character growth, the episode's certainly pretty fun to watch.

The Tick S01E03 Review: Amendment

The Tick, Season 1, Episode 3: Secret/Identity

The third episode of the Tick, and we get a fair bit of plot development, and, most of all, we learn a bit more about the Tick himself. It's hard to miss his... huge hamminess, and the fact that the lights might not all be on upstairs, but here we get some confirmation about his backstory. Or lack thereof -- the Tick has had amnesia, and remembers nothing prior to the beginning of the series, beyond the fact that he's a superhero and he apparently has a compulsive need to seek out Arthur for some reason.

The main plot at this point seems to be 'find Overkill', the insane Punisher-esque vigilante with gadgets and an insane streak of brutality. We're not sure if the Terror's still alive -- Lint shows up at Arthur's apartment to take back the suit (and appears to be successful in doing so) and at least she isn't involved in the Terror's uprising, because, she, too, believes that the Terror is dead. It could all simply be in Arthur's mind, after all, the wheeze-voiced old overlord of a supervillain. In a genre where conspiracies tend to be true 110% of the time, it's hilariously realistic to see that literally nobody gives a fuck about Arthur's insistence that the Terror is alive thanks to all the evidence that points otherwise.

Of course, after it seems that the whole Terror thing might just be in Arthur's mind, Overkill, when he shows up to fight the Tick in a pretty cool fight scene, ends up talking about how he needs the moth suit to defeat the Terror, so there might be a grain of truth to the conspiracy after all.

Oh, and as the title probably informs you, this time around we're mucking around with the whole concept of a secret identity, something that the Tick recognizes but simply doesn't think much of. Which is cool, since Arthur and his civilian life of filling out forms next to the blathering Yergen is not something interesting at all. Of course, without the moth suit (which Overkill and Ramses all want for some reason) Arthur can't really be much help to the Tick, not that he really has been much help beyond giving the Tick some vague directions as to what to do. If nothing else, despite the Tick's insistence that Arthur is the 'brains' of the operation, the Tick has been so much more of a stable emotional anchor for Arthur.

Oh, and we learn that thanks to the unmasking of a superhero named Cat-man-dude due to a bar brawl (Cat-man-dude has a hilariously alliterative name) which caused the slaughter of his puma-wife, the government enacted an amendment that states that superheroes cannot be unmasked by the police. Arthur somehow bluffs his way through the police interrogation by posing to be a superhero named Arthur (ha!) and since his story about Overkill's involvement checks out, he's let off.

Dottie gets a bit more screentime this time around, though she honestly doesn't do much beyond fill the role of the loved one who stumbles upon the hero's superheroing antics, this time hearing that the one who shot the Pyramid gangsters is the Tick. Not very invested in her at all, to be honest.

The Tick S01E02 Review: Fight Club

The Tick, Season 1, Episode 2: Where's My Mind

The pilot for the Tick, as most pilots are wont to do, is torn between having to set both the the setting of the unique world of superheroes that it presents, as well as the tone it's taking with them -- a combination of deconstruction and parody, while still at the same time trying to tell a relatively serious story. This one starts to go through a bit more of the plot and exploring what's behind Arthur.

And we do get a bit of an action scene, albeit one that's not super-exciting, between the indestructible Tick and the leader of the group of Pyramid Gangsters that attack Arthur's apartment, one Ms. Lint. Who shoots her glass eye out when her electric powers go out of control. It's pretty cool, and after making a Tick-assisted escape, Arthur has to confront something that most savvy viewers are wondering. Is the Tick a second personality within Arthur's mind, or is he simply completely imaginary? It could be a Fight Club style situation, where Arthur blacks out and a far-more-competent alter ego sometimes shows up to fuck shit up. Add that to the Tick's general insanity and obsession with destiny and moulding Arthur into a hero, points here Dotty and the shopkeeper talk about how Arthur is alone, and all his talk about being the hero that Arthur always wants to be, and it's easy to really see why. Of course, there are also points in favour of the Tick being real -- like the Tick throwing around gangster cars and blocking lightning blasts while Arthur is still around stuck in that weird moth outfit. 

Of course, we quickly establish that, no, the Tick is real. It's a cool thought, I guess, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a show about the Tick to not actually feature the real Tick.

The show does manage to build up Arthur and Tick's relationship pretty well, even if we spend part of this episode with Arthur not being sure if the Tick is even real. Arthur's neurotic worldview and general dislike of the Tick's penchant to not think things through (or at all) and all his talk about heroism and justice and destiny... while Arthur just wants to give the moth suit back and be done with all this mess. Cool stuff.

We get some short scenes with the Dottie at the precinct, as well as Ms. Lint as she meets up with her teeth-clenched criminal partner Ramses the Fourth, a colourful character who isn't quite happy at Lint's failures. Their scenes are more of kind of defining who their characters are -- Dottie as the long-suffering supportive sister, and Lint as someone who desperately wants to prove herself, and is highly inspired by her mentor, the Terror.

Not much else happen, I think. We're introduced to a Punisher-style uber-bloody-uber-brutal antihero archetype at the end that gets Arthur seemingly in trouble with the policemen, and we get some funny meta jokes from the Tick talking about how this is Arthur's origin story, how this is the part where he rejects his calling and stuff, knowing just how many superhero stories go through the same beats. 

Overall it's still fun, doesn't take itself too seriously, and the show itself is just as bombastic as the Tick himself. It basically forces you to pay attention to it due to how ridiculous it is, yet despite its insanity the charm that it exudes makes you really trust it. 

The Tick S01E01 Review: Wackiness

The Tick, Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot

So, last month, the first six-episode season of Amazon's adaptation of the Tick aired. I know scant little about the Tick other than a couple of episodes from the 1994 cartoon that I can barely remember. I remembered he was bombastic, and had a big-ass chin. And I know he's getting a new live-action series adaptation, with a less-big-ass chin.

I clearly don't remember anything about the show, though, because I didn't even realize that the Tick had a sidekick, Arthur, who is the main character of the show as opposed to the Tick himself. Or maybe that's original to this particular adaptation. I could do some research, of course, on what the show's all about, but that wouldn't be quite as fun. 

So yeah. Let's see what we have here. The main story of the pilot follows Arthur, who is a man with some... obsessive tendencies. The poor man might be crazy, and the Tick might be a voice he hears in his head, and he's very convinced that the greatest supervillain of all time, the Terror, is still alive. We learn that this isn't the first time that Arthur has been obsessed with superheroes, because as a child he witnessed his father, and the local superheroes Flag Five, brutalized and murdered by the Terror, which will fuck with someone's brain quite a bit. Not to mention the Terror throwing little Arthur's ice cream onto his head! What a villain! The Terror is supposed to be killed in a battle against the universe's resident Superman, called Superion, but of course, they never quite found the body.

It's all neat backstory, and Arthur's interactions with his long-suffering sister Dot paints him as a well-meaning man underneath it all. As an adult, Arthur goes investigating on like a drug deal or some shit, but he's clearly unprepared, just a geeky and slightly mentally unstable dude who ends up over his head and getting his ass arrested by the police who think he's off his meds. But during his little stakeout, he meets the huge, bombastic musclebound superhero, the Tick. Who, while lacking his animated counterpart's gigantic hammer jaw, makes up for it with an insane amount of hamminess and hammy lines.

The Tick narrates a good chunk of the episode (and the final scenes show that he actually just says the lines out loud bombastically while perched on the side of a building), of course, and while we don't get as many scenes with the titular Tick as we do Arthur, he's still obviously quite important in his own show. He gives long-winded hammy speeches and apparently has no real concept of common sense, and is pretty hilarious. His proportions might not be as exaggeratedly musclebound as his cartoon or comic book counterpart, but hey, I guess it works. The show makes it ambiguous if the Tick is part of Arthur's delusions for a good chunk of the episode -- or, knowing the genre, like a split personality that takes over or some shit. But, of course, it isn't. Yeah, he seems to disappear when Dot or the policemen come into the scene, but we do get a scene of the Tick running around deflecting bullets and causing a huge explosion on the pier while Arthur is sleeping at home... or maybe is that some kind of split-personality thing where the Tick can only really manifest when Arthur's asleep? The man is certainly traumatized enough due to his childhood  Whether the Tick is real or not (I'm definitely leaning more towards 'real, but kooky') it's going to be interesting. 

And the final scene of the episode has the Tick basically bring one of the merchandise, including a gray moth-themed costume that he gives to Arthur, intent on making the nervous wreck of a man into his sidekick. Not just his sidekick in the conspiracy investigation front, but a straight-up Robin-to-his-Batman sidekick. Without training. The episode ends with the Tick giving a speech, Arthur just wearing his new costume, while the bad goons show up to shoot up Arthur's apartment.

There's a neat balance of earnest superheroing that borders slightly on parodying the superhero tropes, just as the Terror's brief scene in the episode is over-the-top (blinding Syphilis gun, anyone?) but still has enough menace and sliminess to actually take seriously. Both the Tick and Arthur are fun enough and well developed enough to follow through, and the premise is decent enough, with the whole thing seeped with a dose of weirdness. We'll see if the next few episodes prove to make this more memorable than an exercise in hamminess.