POWERLESS Has a Friend in Me in “I’ma Friend You”

Season 1, Episode 6: “I’ma Friend You”
Written by Sabrina Jalees
Directed by Alex Reid

[All photos courtesy NBC Universal]

We open this week’s episode with Breaking News! Crimson Fox (Deanna Russo) has announced that she’s leaving Charm City for Metropolis! While the guys joke about getting Aqualad instead, the women worry about an uptick in crime and super villainy.

Emily (Vanessa Hudgens) suggests taking a self-defense course and asks Jackie (Christina Kirk) if she wants to join her; Jackie’s kinda noncommital, so Emily takes that as a yes.

Emily waits for Jackie and gets chased by one of Jack-O-Lantern’s (Kimani Ray Smith) fireballs. She finds Jackie…driving an Uber. Later, Jackie tells Emily not to mention it to the others but she’s working to send her kid to Six Flags over Metropolis.

Meanwhile, Van (Alan Tudyk) is mad. SOMEONE used his private toilet, leaving a magazine behind and he wants to know who it was so he can fire them. He zeroes in on Wendy (Jenni Pierson), Ron (Ron Funches), and Teddy (Danny Pudi). No one confesses, so he makes them work in a creepy boarded up conference room.  They really don’t care.

Emily finds out there was no trip and confronts Jackie; they get in a fight about it.

Van, meanwhile, has Ron, Teddy, and Wendy in the hot seat telling each of them that the others have confessed and offering them a gift card if they narc on the others.

Jackie gets her car destroyed by Jack-O-Lantern on an Uber run and winds up in the hospital. They call Emily (her emergency contact) and the women make up. It turns out Jackie wants to get an MBA so she can get away from Van’s asshattery.

Meanwhile, Van is successful at getting Ron, Wendy, and Teddy to turn on each other. Finally, Ron decides to put an end to this and just confesses…just then Wendy and Teddy also come in and confess. Van finally gets security footage from his office and sees that no one used his restroom, it was just Jackie trying to kill a bee with a magazine.

Van plays it off like he was just teaching them a life lesson.

Over the closing credits, we see who was using his restroom just before the janitor erases the file.

Analysis:

Well, we’re finally back after last week’s false non-start. The leading theory is that NBC didn’t want to burn up an episode opposite of the NCAA basketball tournament and instead substituted a rerun of its new John Lithgow docu-comedy series Trial and Error. Dear NBC, thank you for thinking of us mortals, but please decide these things in advance so the listings will be updated correctly! Errrrrr.

Well, not much comic book stuff in this episode except a mention of Aqualad, Crimson Fox’s press conference and Jack-o-Lantern causing a little mayhem. It didn’t make for a great episode. Maybe NBC was mistaken and should have put this one up against the tourney anyway.

So..who will they get to replace Crimson Fox? Wasn’t she supposed to be a semi-regular character?

So the main plot of this story is that Emily is doing her “friendly puppy” routine and Jackie just wants Emily out of her business. But in the end, Jackie realizes that she needs to open up a bit and Emily learns a little about boundaries.

A few weeks ago, Emily didn’t listen to Jackie and learned a lesson. This episode the same thing happens again. Emily tries too hard to engage Jackie, she doesn’t listen and she ends up learning a lesson. This is a little repetitive.

Once again the “B” plot saves the day as Van tries to discover who has been using his private toilet. Alan Tudyk’s Van would be dangerous if he was smart.  Luckily the team can outwit him. I like it that everyone uses the bathroom….if only Van was nicer to the maintenance man he would have known.

Nice use of Uber as a side job for Jackie. Hey, Uber! If you’re looking to sponsor something, why not sponsor us? We have plenty of shows for you!

All and all, this episode was just kind of skippable.

Join us next time, true believer as Van wins a major award in “Van of The Year”!

 

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.