What I’m Watching: Powerless

Powerless: Season 1, Episode 9 “Green Furious” (B+)

Now this is great casting. I like Natalie Morales a lot, and haven’t found her roles on “The Grinder” and “Santa Clarita Diet” to give her sufficient material following the show that I initially got to know her watching, “Parks and Recreation.” Here, having her play Green Fury, a superhero fresh off a breakup who got suckered into doing a commercial for Emily after she saved her from certain death at the hands of Jack-O-Lantern, was simply fantastic, and I do hope that she becomes a recurring character. Teddy being obsessed with trying to talk to her and then going way overboard with the guyliner to tell a story of a parent who saved Christmas was extremely entertaining, and when Ron is the reasonable one, you know that there’s a problem. Emily’s eagerness to make a name for herself was obviously going to get her into trouble, and I love that she managed to pitch something, have it corrupted by her chauvinist bosses, and then find a way to turn it into something great that solved more than one problem. The Olympian’s eagerness to be naked came in very handy, and now Emily has a go-to friend in Green Fury. Matt Oberg is playing a very different character here as the main jerk in charge than he’s going to be portraying this season on “Veep,” and it’s fun to see how unalike the two fictitious people are. I liked the Wendy-Jackie-Ruby storyline more than I thought I would, and I especially enjoyed how it was resolved with the reveal of Ruby’s reason for punching her classmate.