"Persona," written by Matt Wayne and directed by Victor Cook, is full of introductions. In just one episode, we get the black costume, the Black Cat, the Chameleon, Quentin Beck (Mysterio), Phineas Mason (the Terrible Tinkerer), and even Captain George Stacy, Gwen's father. Plus we get a whole developing arc with the symbiote, the setup for Eddie Brock's hatred of Peter, the beginnings of romance between Spidey and the Cat... it's amazing how much they fit into these episodes while still having plenty of imaginative action.
It's nice that they found their own variant of the symbiote/black costume story. They borrowed the John Jameson/space shuttle aspects from the '90s animated series, but otherwise it was handled in a distinctive way. I liked it that the symbiote was taken to a lab for study and then got out; I wish the third movie had handled it that way, providing a legitimate justification for Spidey and the symbiote getting together, rather than having it arbitrarily fall out of the sky close to him. And it nicely ties the black costume's origins together with Eddie's growing resentment of Peter. Although I'm not certain that's the best approach, because once Eddie bonds with the symbiote and gains its memories, won't he know that he was wrong about Peter failing to help during the symbiote theft? And wouldn't that undermine one of the basic reasons for his resentment? Well, we'll see how it plays out. I think Greg Weisman and his writing staff have more than earned my trust at this stage.
Tricia Helfer gave a very sexy performance as the Black Cat, doing as effective a job with her voice alone as she does with her whole body on Galactica. Just imagine the effect her come-ons are having on a 15-year-old kid. Not that she knows he's a kid; she assumes Spidey's overage. Although she did mention that she has a school locker, so she can't be much older; I read somewhere that she's 19 in this version. Still, there's a certain inappropriateness to the relationship she's aspiring to, and I'm wondering where they're going with this. Also, it's a bit much to throw Felicia into the mix so soon after introducing MJ (and with Gwen's feelings for Peter barely having been touched on, not to mention the whole Liz situation, if there is one). Sure, Peter Parker's life in the comics was very much a soap opera and kind of a wish-fulfillment fantasy, with all these hot babes and more falling for him, but it's the one thing about this show's deftly concentrated storylines that could really stand to be spaced out more.
I wonder what the scene with Aunt May swooning (and cooking like mad) was all about. Maybe they're setting up an illness for her, adapting one of her various near-death medical crises from the comics? Could they combine that somehow with the black-costume/evil-Spidey or Venom narrative? Yeah, I can see that, the costume making him more selfish and irresponsible while May needs him more than ever. We'll see.
(And in response to Anwar's wondering, Chameleon did have a Russian accent here, so he's probably Dmitri Smerdyakoff. Whether he's related to Sergei Kravinoff remains to be seen, since Kraven hasn't been introduced yet, of course.)
