"Opening Night," written by Greg Weisman, directed by Mike Goguen:
Norman Osborn invites Spidey to test the Vault, the new supervillain prison, by trying to break out. But the Green Goblin is mounting his own plans, sabotaging the Vault's security system so the villains within can get Spidey. But Black Cat is there on a mission of her own -- to spring her father, Walter Hardy. When she helps Spidey get away from the villains, he recognizes Walter -- as the burglar who killed Uncle Ben!
Wow. I never saw that coming. And they went the redemptive route here. Hardy turns out to be a guy who'd never killed anyone before and deeply regretted what he did to Ben, and he chooses to sacrifice himself, setting off the Vault's sleep gas with himself still inside. Felicia blames Spidey, and though she saves him from Gobby one last time, she says she'll never forgive him.
Meanwhile, the show is doing its usual thing, juxtaposing the action with the school play of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with lines from the play complementing the action. Although there's a bit of rewriting. Puck (Hobie) is made up to look like the Green Goblin, and references to "Robin" (Goodfellow, Puck's other name) are changed to "Goblin." And the unspecified fairy who speaks with Puck in Act II, Scene I (played by Glory) is identified as Cobweb (a fairy who only has four brief lines attributed to him/her in the actual script) and dressed in red and blue with a web motif. It works out pretty well, with some nice juxtapositions between the play and the action. Indeed, Gobby's in a rhyming mood as he watches the Vault battle and once or twice quotes Puck directly.
I love the alias on Black Cat's fake ID: Selina Drew. Selina being the other sexy comic-book catburglar, of course, and Drew as in Nancy Drew (a pun on Felicia Hardy).
And speaking of sexy... the way Tricia Helfer does Black Cat's flirtatious voice is way too hot for kids' TV. Just the sound of that voice should be R-rated. Wow.
"Final Curtain," the season finale, written by Kevin Hopps, directed by Victor Cook:
Something was wrong with the audio here, and for most of the episode, I could only hear the music and the occasional sound effect. At first, I thought they were doing something experimental, a dialogue-less action scene, but then I saw Spidey's jaw moving with no sound coming out. I had to turn on the closed captioning to get the dialogue.
That probably undermined my enjoyment of the episode, though it was nice to be able to hear the music mostly in the clear. Still, I found the pacing problematical, and I'm not sure how different the experience would've been with the full soundtrack.
The story begins with Spidey battling Goblin henchgoons in pumpkin masks; then we cut to Harry coming to Gwen for help. Pete gets called in, and Harry reveals that he was kidnapped by the Green Goblin, proving that he wasn't the Goblin as he thought. This puts suspicion back on Norman, and Spidey faces both Osborns to try to figure it out -- only for all of them to be attacked by the actual Goblin, which was rather a surprise. Anyway, the latter half of the episode was mostly one big chase/fight scene, which got rather ridiculous at one point, as Gobby had somehow converted water towers all over the city into pumpkin-bomb launchers (which leaves me wondering how all those buildings maintained their water pressure) and hired about a thousand goons to chase after Spidey. The whole thing was really over the top and distracted from the story.
Anyway, Spidey finally gets Gobby's mask off... and it's Norman after all, even though another Norman is in a pursuing helicopter with Harry. Turns out that Norman is actually the Chameleon, and the real Norman helpfully explains the whole backstory while he's battling Spidey. Here's another pacing problem, not only because of the contrivance of such a lengthy expository sequence in the middle of a fight, but because there's no variation in the frenetic pacing of the battle once Norman is unmasked, no moment of climax, no pause for the audience to gasp as the truth sinks in.
But this is pretty much what I expected all along. I was never really convinced that Harry was the Goblin; I suspected that Norman had set him up. And the way it was made to look like Harry was the Goblin again in recent episodes, without it being confirmed, set off a red flag for me that it was misdirection. Oh, I wasn't certain, but I suspected. Still, they did a good job of leaving me wondering here, with both Osborns seemingly being ruled out as suspects. I didn't think of the Chameleon.
The battle ends with Norman/Gobby apparently self-immolating, and Peter doesn't seem at all guilty about it even though he arguably helped cause it, or so it looked to me. That bugs me. Anyway, Peter and Gwen had finally admitted their feelings earlier, and Pete had broken up with Liz, but now that Harry's lost his father, Gwen can't break up with him. Though Harry's being pretty clearly manipulative when he tells her how much he needs her now; earlier we saw him overhearing as Pete and Gwen confessed their love. So he's not entirely a sympathetic figure here.
And at the end, we see that Norman has survived and gone incognito as a Mr. Roman. He'll be back!
Or will he? I've heard variously that the show is definitely cancelled or that there's at least some chance of renewal but no assurance. "Final Curtain" may well have been aptly named. If so, that's a disappointment, because as finales go, it was fairly weak, substituting flash and excess for substance. And there are so many threads left to explore. For one, Curt and Martha Connors left the ESU lab to relocate to Florida, leaving it in the control of the malevolent Miles Warren. That was clearly meant to lead somewhere, both to a Lizard comeback and more mischief from Warren. And Pete's romantic life is still stuck at the beginning, pretty much. He hasn't even gotten together with Gwen, and MJ has spent the whole series relegated to the role of a friend, with any further potential left untouched.
I haven't found the second season quite as superb as the first. Still, it will be a shame if the show ends here. Overall, it's still probably the best of Marvel's animated TV series.
