What I’m Watching: Powerless

Powerless: Season 1, Episode 4 “Emily Dates a Henchman” (B+)

I like that this show is expanding from having its characters work on inventions to stop collateral damage from affecting the citizens of their city to looking at the other implications about what that kind of life is like. Emily getting an invitation to her ex-boyfriend’s wedding felt like something that didn’t entirely fit on this show. It made much more sense for that to inspire Emily to realize that she needed to find a man, and to work to do so according to the checklist that she had made. Going out with Jackie and Wendy didn’t seem so productive until the perfect guy, played by Dan Buckley, best known as Major on “iZombie,” showed up, but he turned out to be a very obvious henchman once Emily’s coworkers heard her describe where he wanted to take her. The best part was that he wasn’t just a bad guy but an actual Bad Guy, using what Emily had told him about their latest invention to steal it for the Riddler, whose riddle-hidden instructions were too confusing for the henchmen to follow. Van walking in dressed as Robin was the perfect timing to scare them away, though of course he was way too preoccupied with himself to realize that his two most loyal employees were tied to a chair. Van’s adventure with Teddy, Ron, and the Baterang was entertaining, and I think it’s a good thing that we don’t actually see the heroes on this show and we’re left to the powerless and the semi-villains who cause them so much annoyance.