Who Wants to be a Superhero 2, Episode 5: Snakes and Rats

Last week, the lair was ransacked, and the heroes set out to recover their secret identities and possibly avenge the ransacking. They had to obtain disguises to intercept a courier, and Hygena was overly hygienic about it. Basura stupidly fell for the trap of a worried mother searching for her lost child and blew her off, causing her to get the boot. Five remain, and unless they do something stupid, it looks to be a two-man race between Parthenon and Hyper Strike.

The team is back at the lair, talking about the empty beds. Half their team is gone, but Hyper Strike sees it as improving his odds of winning.

The next morning brings special effects electricity through the power lines, and that can mean only one thing – Feedback is here for a visit. Or not. Actually, the StanScreen pops on and a newsguy tells us and the team that it’s a “dark day” for the city as electricity is being diverted, causing blackouts. Cue the dimmer switch on the lair. I was going to make a snide remark about the “dark day” joke, but then I realized that it’s a far better pun than most news people can come up with.

Newsguy says that Dr. Dark is the main suspect, and as Defuser announces that it’s time to go after him again, Stan pops up on the screen. Stan overdramatizes for some reason, and equally strangely, Hyper Strike responds to everything Stan says like he’s at revival week. Stan tells them he’s traced the power drain to a remote station and sends them on their way.

I still don’t see why Feedback wasn’t called. Seems obvious that he’d be all over it. The right tool for the right job, you know?

On the way over, the heroes waste gas by taking both vehicles. Why doesn’t Stan mention things like eco-friendliness in his rooftop diatribes? Anyway, Hyper Strike continues his monologue in the SUV, making me worry that he’s getting so much attention this week.

They find a StanScreen and Dr. Dark dials in. Like any good supervillain, he explains exactly how they can defeat his evil plan – by crawling through an access tube one at a time and removing five fuses within six minutes. And, since he made copies of their secret identities before the courier from last episode got them, he’ll be using their weaknesses against them.

Whip-Snap screams at this revelation, and Defuser tells us that she’s a very emotional person. Yeah, thanks, Captain Duh. Whip-Snap goes first and receives a nice pep talk from the team. As she reaches the end of the tube and emerges into a small room, she crawls right into a family of rats. She screams, but as she puts it, she turns her fear into anger and gets through it in a little more than a minute. The team does seem to be taking their sweet time getting someone else in.

Parthenon is next, and isn’t it amazing how they cleared out the rats and put a bunch of snakes in the room in less than a minute? Parthenon does quite well, but on the way back goes to grab a pipe for support, but grabs a snake instead. He gives out a high pitched shriek that freak out his teammates. He also finishes in a little more than a minute. Maybe the clock stops while there’s no one in the tube, but they seem to be wasting a lot of time in between attempts.

Hygena goes, and complains that the tube is a very tight squeeze. She sees a snake and freezes. She manages to get going again, and now we see there are large spiders, complete with webs that weren’t there before, in addition to the snakes and a lone rat that couldn’t find his way home. On the way back, she’s stopped by a snake in the tube and has to wait for it to pass, finishing in a little over 90 seconds. She asks someone, in a very small voice, to please get the web off her. I can’t judge, as I freaked out big time when I walked through a spider web this weekend.

Two more to go and over two minutes, so they should have no problem, right? Hyper Strike mentions to us that the others freaked out, shaking, crying. As they comfort Hygena, the clock ticks down to under two minutes. I am SO confused. Anyway, Hyper Strike says with glee that there will be some creepy spiders in there for him, and indeed, they seem to be everywhere. Well, you can just rock me to sleep tonight. Hyper Strike says he didn’t look around much, he just tried to get the heck out of there. He finishes in under a minute, worrying that he took too much time looking for the fuse. Meanwhile, we get some cheesy shots of the city and more electricity special effects. If Dr. Dark were stealing power, wouldn’t those be the last thing you’d see? I guess they have to cut the scene somehow.

Defuser mentions that he’s claustrophobic, and is worried that he’ll get stuck in the tunnel. OK, the clock, which was at 1:04 while everyone was congratulating Hyper Strike and everyone was in a completely different position (not to mention Defuser still having most of his equipment on whereas it’s mostly off in the next shot), starts at 1:00. That was a long four seconds. I counted six seconds just showing Defuser psyching himself up. As I said earlier in the season, I’m not looking for high drama here, just don’t insult my intelligence like this, okay?

Defuser crawls in the tunnel… and gets stuck. Wasn’t this a Simpsons episode or five? Hyper Strike looks to be laughing a little. Defuser makes it through and has to crawl through snakes, rats, and spiders. An incredibly fake looking spider falls on his back and scurries up to his neck with all the animation of a South Park episode. He finds the fuse with three seconds left. The city is saved (and we are treated to another cheesy picture of the skyline powering back up).

On the way back to the lair, Stan congratulates them for facing their fears. As a reward, he is treated them to a night out, but reminds them to always act like superheroes when in the public eye. OK, no one could possibly be stupid enough to fall for this again, especially with a warning, could they?

In full costume, the team heads to a Mexican restaurant. They get some funny looks, but I’m thinking the guy with the tattoos all over his hand can’t judge. Hyper Strike is acting like a kid, getting all excited about the menu, and everyone is generally happy to be out of the lair for a while.

Some kids look at the group, not quite sure what to make of them, and the team invites them over. Soon they are surrounded by a throng of kids. Whip-Snap just eats the attention up with a spoon. She’s got a HUGE smile on her face, and it’s honestly nice to see as she has gone through some emotional battles. Parthenon and Hygena talk to the children as well, Hygena mentioning that she felt a responsibility to be a role model. She reminds the kids to wash their hands, which goes over about as well as you’d think. Hyper Strike and Defuser seem to lay back and let the others take care of this one, though, although the Defuser hands out some sort of gadget that will stop the bad guys from chasing you. It looks like it’s from a set of jacks, but from the look of it, it’s not something I would be handing out to kids.

The kids finally leave, and the waiter comes to collect the bill. Oops. No one has money, so Defuser asks for other options. Cue comedy shots of the heroes bussing tables, filling water glasses, and such. As they leave the restaurant, the team mentions that Defuser’s jacks were a big hit with the kids. So there you go. I still wouldn’t have told them to throw it at someone chasing them.

At the lair, Stan appears on the StanScreen, startling Hyper Strike so that he almost falls over. This episode is very odd, I know different teams of producers and editors work on every episode, but this has a completely different feel, camera angles, lighting, etc.

Anyway, Stan talks about the mission for a minute until Dr. Dark interrupts. Fortunately, Stan happened to be on three screens at once at the time, so he watches Dr. Dark in the same Brady Bunch manner that he and Dark Enforcer interacted last season. Dr. Dark wants to show Stan that they’re not the heroes he thinks they are. Ooh, how evil.