What I’m Watching: The Cape

The Cape: Season 1, Episode 6 “Goggles and Hicks” (F)

I’m ready to officially call this the first terrible installment of this show. There isn’t any redeeming value at all, including Summer Glau, and the episode itself was quite boring. The villains are supremely stupid, and on top of that, there’s a new kid whose role couldn’t really be anything but horrible. What appalled me most in this hour was the awful writing. Trip’s “that’s just wrong” in response to the comment “your mom is hot” is not something he either would ever remotely say or could pull off, but then again, this is the kid who made his mom’s lawyer friend sit outside for an entire afternoon but was so precocious enough to toss him a snack. “That’s just wrong” was hardly the worst offense, of course, as one of this week’s one-note villains actually seriously said, “I see who wears the cape in this relationship.” Not content to be one-upped, Vince’s out-of-character retort had something to do with ripping the guy’s eyeballs out and crushing them into his skull if he ever saw him again. The very end of the episode, which goes right into the circus act rehearsal, indicates that this show wants to be something that it’s very much not. Episode-long debates about whether heroes get to take vacation days are a distraction that take away completely from the otherwise effective mythology. At least the Cape didn’t come face-to-face with Chess, but I find it hard to believe that Peter Fleming would hire mercenaries to take out his nemesis rather than do the dirty work himself.