The first season comes to a close with "Nature vs. Nurture," written by Kevin Hopps and directed by Victor Cook, the series' producer and supervising director. We start off with a callback to the first episode of the series, with Spidey triumphantly back in the red and blue as he effortlessly takes down a gang of thieves in a rooftop action sequence reminiscent of the one from the start of episode one, only bigger. Paradoxically, even though Spidey's back in classic form, he wages the whole battle in silence -- maybe because he just needs to absorb it for a while. This is Spidey's notice to Tombstone that the deal Black Spidey made with him is off -- but that's all right, since Venom comes in after Spidey leaves and applies for the job opening -- so long as he gets to kill Spider-Man.
Anyway, Peter makes amends with the gang at school -- and has the class to thank Flash Thompson for setting him straight -- and Gwen makes her first tentative move, offering to help him with Thanksgiving dinner while Aunt May is recuperating. But MJ warns Peter about Eddie's hostility toward him, a warning he fails to take seriously enough -- as we find when Venom attacks him in his own home. Pete recognizes the symbiote, but not who it's bonded with, not yet. Of course, Venom wants to toy with him, so he traps Spidey in webbing and taunts him about going after the ones he loves.
Spidey intercepts Venom just outside May's hospital window while May is inside, unaware of the battle raging nearby. Here, Venom calls Spidey "bro," revealing his identity. Spidey fails to get through to Eddie but succeeds in protecting May, but Venom just says he'll go after the one Peter wants the most (or loves the most; hard to tell through the voice distortion). Pete jumps to the conclusion that this is MJ, but when he finds her at what's apparently supposed to be the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade (where the student body is wrangling a big balloon of the school mascot), the only muscleman going after her is Flash, whose clumsy makeout moves fail to pin her down. Too late, Spidey discovers that Eddie's real target was Gwen -- who soon ends up cocooned in black webbing and dangling from a parade float, with the webbing slowly fraying (man, the webbing is so fragile in this show compared to the comics).
Of course, Spidey battles Venom atop the balloons, but the real hero props here go to Flash and the gang. When Flash (a bit belatedly) recognizes that Gwen is in danger, he goes into quarterback mode and rallies his team to spring to the rescue, catching Gwen in a deflating balloon hand while Spidey's being kept busy. I always love it in superhero stories where ordinary folks get to be heroic too.
Spidey's ultimate solution to defeating Venom is very clever, although I think it comes from the comics -- he offers to surrender himself to the symbiote. Turns out Eddie is just Rebound Guy, and symbie drops him like a hot potato when Peter offers to take it back. But that's a trick; Pete's psychological defenses (in the form of his mental images of his friends and family, the people he's genuinely bonded with) prevent the symbiote from finding a foothold in his mind. Symbie leaves him for Eddie again (what a fickle blob of goo), but Spidey intercepts and contains the weakened alien, and in surprisingly gangsterish fashion, buries it in concrete being poured at a construction site. (For now....)
We also get some insight into what drives Eddie. Essentially, he's a very bitter and lonely character. After the deaths of their parents, Peter had Ben and May, but Eddie had nobody, and can't stand being alone. That's why he took it so hard when it seemed his "bro" Peter had betrayed him, and why he so eagerly bonds with the symbiote. Even though he was just sloppy seconds to the alien, he still pleads with it not to leave him alone. Talk about your co-dependency issues. I like it that they've taken a more psychological approach to the Venom story. It's a much more effective use of the character than just having him run around talking about eating people's spleens... and then doing it.
Back at home, May's Dr. Bromwell (a character from the Lee-era comics, though he's been made African-American here) is keeping her company, and there are hints of a romance there. Gwen and George Stacy bring Thanksgiving dinner, and afterward, Gwen makes her move, kissing Peter and leaving him virtually speechless. Ironically, the Gwen-Peter romance begins here the way it ended in the comics: courtesy of a supervillain dangling her from a height.
The one element that didn't work too well here was the revisit of the thread from the Lizard episode about the "gene cleanser" formula Pete had saved in case he ever wanted to give up being Spidey. We see him contemplating that here and eventually deciding for good that he's content being a superhero, pouring the formula down the drain. But it never really connected well with the overall story; it felt tacked on to tie up a loose end. I'm hoping it's just the setup for something worthwhile next season -- like maybe when the cleanser foamed up in the sink, he breathed in enough to cause him to begin losing his powers or something. If not, it'll just be a rare misstep in this show's storytelling.
As for the next season, it seems promising that CW4Kids will keep the show around. It's been steadily building in the ratings all season, and was the top-rated broadcast network show last Saturday, according to
Comics2Film (although it doesn't specify whether that means for its time slot or for the whole day). CW4Kids is keeping it on the schedule in reruns through the summer, and will be rebroadcasting the whole season in order, two episodes a week. So I'd say the odds are good that it will be back in the fall.
Looking back on the season, if I have one real complaint about this show, it's that it does a really poor job capturing the look and feel of New York City. I've kind of gotten used to the cartoony and slightly weird character design style, but the scenery design just doesn't do it for me. It just comes off as a generic city, not specifically New York. The landmarks we occasionally see, like the Chrysler Building and Times Square, just don't look like they should. And there's generally too little activity in the streets, a lack of vehicle or pedestrian traffic, not to mention a lack of the noisy audio ambience of the city. That's something I'd like to see improved in the future, though I doubt the show will change its trademark look that much.
