Let’s start taking bets on how long it’ll be before Tiger says, “I’m too old for this shit!”
Actually, the buddy cop dynamic here is maybe more DUE SOUTH than LETHAL WEAPON, and Tiger's actually got more dimensions than the “old partner” stock character. He isn’t really that old, for one, and I'll even say he's pretty charming after this episode. It’s refreshing to see a single parent who’s actually, you know, learned something about how to talk to children after years of raising his own kid. It’s not the usual “book smarts vs. street smarts” line that divides partners’ M.O.’s.
Again, I’m appreciating how this show’s established and defined its casts’ personalities in a much quicker and realer fashion than certain other new shows that’re supposedly strong in their basis in character. Even something as simple as Tiger having to indulge the absurdly soft-spoken techy says a lot (and in an entertaining way, importantly) with only a little. To compare it to another new series of the season, you get the sense that everybody involved has gone over and revised this many times so it's finely-tuned, as opposed to the way [C] – CONTROL seemed to eventually barrel ahead without a defined notion of where it would be stopping. When the first couple episodes are titled “All’s Well That Ends Well” and “A Good Beginning Makes A Good Ending,” you figure that the crew has a sense of the whole picture from the start.
Man, I’d be intrigued to see how this series is being received in Japan. The cross-cultural exchange of ideas runs on a two-way street, after all, and I think I’m getting a sense of how encyclopedic mecha fans must’ve felt when they were watching GURREN LAGANN roll out. This feels like it's made by talent with a deep and thorough knowledge of superhero comics - - for one, the episodic structure feels exactly like old school issue-to-issue plotting so far. Of course, even if I can recognize where it’s cherry picked all its ideas from, it's shining in its execution like any proper pop cultural remix. This show's pure fun.
Watch this episode “A Good Beginning Makes A Good Ending” below, decide for yourself and then read my comments on the previous episode here.
Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of HYBRID BASTARDS! & UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here & here. Follow him on Twitter: @tompinchuk
