Monsters of Television

“Because we know you types are all about sincerity.”

One step forward, two steps back.

“Terrors” is one of those episodes that may have been better suited as a two-parter, especially given all the character beats it would like to address but decides not to so we can have a prison break episode that wasn’t really about a  prison break. Instead, it’s a dullard of an episode with bad writing and uninspired action that leads to it feel painfully generic.

On the upside, Amanda Waller is still The Wall and not The Rail, so I guess I should be thankful for small favors.

M’gann and Conner go undercover to Belle Reve, a prison (in the show) for the sane supervillain types in Louisiana (it is not the base of operations of the Suicide Squad here). They pose as the Tuppence and Tommy Terror, aka the Terror Twins, a pair of generic punk-ish supervillains with superstrength and flight (or super leaping). I can’t tell you much else about them because, well, they’re not really well-defined and I’m fairly positive that they’re original creations with no history until this show.

The mission is to find out why the ice-based villains from the pilot are all aiming to end up at Belle Reve, triggered by Mr. Freeze appealing his insanity claim and being transferred out of Arkham Asylum. (Freeze has never struck me as insane since his revamp in Batman: The Animated Series, and he doesn’t seem particular unhinged here either.) So since M’gann can shapeshift into Tuppence and Conner vaguely resembles Tommy, they go in to figure out what’s up.

And that’s pretty much that. The rest of the beats between the two heroes wants to build to the kiss between M’gann and Conner, and it could make a legitimate case for it happening, but it doesn’t and instead rests on the blushing and the awkwardness from previous episodes to sell the attraction.

I get frustrated with this because it’s not just an issue of ‘shipping to pair these two off. There’s legitimate reasons that they both would be attracted to each (Duh, M’gann, they’re both not human!), but the show doesn’t leave room for that, and instead ties the attraction, at least on Conner’s part, to the fact that M’gann (triggered by a conversation with the painfully written Icicle, Jr. (and an uninspired voice turn by the normally dependable Yuri Lowenthal) sees Conner as a hero onto himself, not just a Superman clone.

My frustration also stems from not only the lack of non-human connection the two share, but from the fact that I have no idea why M’gann is attracted to Conner. Is it because he’s hunky? Has bedroom eyes? Leaves her angsty poetry in her cubby at Mount Justice? The show gives us a reason and even a reason as a form of  character development for Conner to be attracted to her, but where is M’gann’s perspective? Where is her agency in this relationship?

Piling on to this is their session with Hugo Strange (who ends up taking control of Belle Reve for the Light (of course) after Waller is dismissed from the post). Their little group session is what led to my thought that a two-parter would be helpful to flesh out their relationship. There’s no fallout from M’gann betraying Conner trust, explaining his issues to a complete stranger. But there should be! Sure, she’s trying to help, but some frustration, some telepathic conversation about his privacy would’ve solved that issue.

The rest of the episode is standard prison break stuff, with nothing particularly interesting or inspiring to write home about. I’m not exactly sure how freezing the wall and then punching it would would as an escape route (of course, they weren’t trying to escape, not really, but still) (plus, if they tested the walls, as Waller said, they didn’t have Superman use his cold breath on it?).

I’m kind of back to where I started with the series before last week’s episode, which is mostly frustrated and annoyed that so much potential is being wasted on a time-suck of a show. And, yet, I have vain hopes that next week will be better given its premise and focus. I expect those hopes to be dashed, of course.

Oh, and as a personal, fanboy-ish note: Guys. The Riddler does not have a mullet. But I’m glad he escaped.