What I’m Watching: Powerless (Last Episode?)

Powerless: Season 1, Episode 7 “Van v Emily: Dawn of Justice” (B+)

It took me a little bit of time to figure out what happened here since it appeared that, somehow I had missed an episode in my weekly coverage of this show. I was especially motivated to screen another half-hour because of the devastating news that this show has been pulled from the schedule indefinitely, which all but signals cancellation. Luckily, we’ll likely see the last three episodes since it’s easy enough for NBC to burn them off at least release them online, but I had hoped this would grow into something more. That’s even truer given the fact that this episode only briefly introduced Natalie Morales’ Green Fury before going more in depth with her character a few episodes later. If this show had gone on for multiple seasons, it could have dealt with what it’s like to be a superhero, or how they treat the normal folks, with all these villains in Charm City always ruining everything. Teddy’s obsession with seeing Green Fury again was funniest for the moment in which he pretended that he didn’t know his girlfriend when she showed up on the screen to give her back her purse. Emily challenging Van to a game of Green Arrow darts to get an office wasn’t the most enthralling driving force for an episode, but I enjoyed his trophy for the misspelling of failure and all of the other absurd accommodations he had been given by those who wanted to keep him happy throughout his life. Ultimately concluding that he could celebrate Emily’s successes as his own and then blame all failures exclusively on her was a very fitting thing for Van to do given everything we’ve seen from him. I do hope that this isn’t the last that we’ve seen of this show – I really like it.