POWERLESS Finds Riddling Romance in “Emily Dates A Henchman”
Season 1, Episode 4: “Emily Dates A Henchman”
Written by Neel Shah
Directed by Matt Sohn
[All photos courtesy NBC Universal]
Teddy (Danny Pudi) and Ron (Ron Funches) are examining a supposedly indestructible vault door that Two-Face breached when they find a Batarang. Child-like glee and wonder ensue.
Emily and the team demonstrate their indestructible cell phone case.
Van (Alan Tudyk) sees the Batarang and tells the story of how Batman took off his side view mirror once. He wants Batman to pay for it…with money.
Wendi (Jennie Pierson), Jackie (Christina Kirk) and Emily (Vanessa Hudgens) go out for a girls night. While at a bar, Emily meets “Dan” (Robert Buckley), who claims he’s a doctor. Really he’s one of The Riddler’s henchmen!
After “Dan” is introduced to the team, they later tell Emily that she’s dating a henchman.
Ron and Teddy leave out milk, cookies and the Batarang in hopes that Saint Batman would soon be there.
Emily and Jackie talk about “Dan” on the balcony, Jackie tells her to just let it go, but Emily wants to confront him. She does and it turns out his name isn’t “Dan” it’s Reggie and he and his associates are here to rob Wayne Tech of the prototype cell phone cases.
Meanwhile Van (dressed in his Robin costume), Teddy and Ron await Batman in a dark alley thinking that it will be a perfect place for Batman to show up. Unfortunately, they run into a mugging instead. Luckily for them, Batman takes out the robber and returns their stolen wallets.
Back at Wayne Tech, Reggie receives a riddle from his boss that tells him what he’s supposed to do with Emily and Jackie. Emily accidentally tells him the answer. Luckily for them, Van shows back up at the office wearing his Robin costume and the henchmen, thinking Batman must not be far behind, scram.
Van, Ron, and Teddy then tell the women their story about their brush with Batman; they don’t believe it for a second.
Analysis:
Lots of Batman references in this one; too bad we didn’t have an ACTUAL Batman sighting….or Riddler…or Two-Face.
The best part of the episode was Alan Tudyk in the Robin Costume. I would love to hear where they got the costume from. If anyone sees Alan at a con, please ask him and let us know.
I wonder if Batman laughed his ass off at the sight of his cousin in that Robin suit.
An interesting bit of information is that in the Powerless universe, there have already been two dead Robins. Of course, it could be that if Dick Grayson is one of them and the public just thinks he’s dead and he’s moved on to Nightwing.
Remember Crimson Fox from the pilot? Where has she gone? I was under the impression that they would have some level of interaction with her during the series.
So our main story for this episode is Emily dating a henchman. If I was dating a henchman, I’d take out a huge life insurance policy on her and wish her the best of luck.
Emily is in no real danger until she opens her mouth about the indestructible cell phone cover. That’s not a smart thing to do when you work Research and Development. There could have been LexCorp spies in that bar. She could have really damaged Wayne Tech with her loose lips.
We get a great guest star in Robert Buckley from iZombie. He plays the not so smart henchman pretty well. I wonder about the amount of time this episode happens in. In Act two, he is introduced to the team with a Green Lantern ring-shaped mark on his face. By the next act, it’s all healed. Did the episode take place over a few weeks to a month?
Another tidbit of information we received from this episode is that this episode takes place 6 months after the pilot episode.
We also have a bit of a mystery episode order wise. This episode was production number 6. Episodes 4 & 5 haven’t played yet. I wonder what are in those two episodes that they could be taken out of the run order?
Ron’s child-like glee with the Batarang was just great. Ron Funches’ expressions are just fun to watch.
Next episode, Emily enters Teddy into the Wayne Innovation contest, will he be able to beat the team from Wayne X?
Powerless airs Thursday at 8:30/7:30 Central on NBC. It can also be found on Hulu, Amazon, and NBC.com. For more information, visit the official website.
