['The Cape' – 'The Lich, Part 2']

At this point, 'The Cape' has gone so far over the top that its weird storytelling almost works. Emphasis on "almost," but since the show's previous superpower was "boring the audience into submission," I'll take the freakiness of this new brand of show.

'The Lich, Part 2' had all of the ambiance of the first part last week, and if it didn't quite have the propulsive forward movement of that initial half, it introduced some mysteries that I actually want solved.

Now, there's no saying any of those mysteries in fact WILL be solved, in that the show closed down production unexpectedly and didn't have the chance to film a full season. Around a month ago, I would have called that a mercy killing. Now? It's a case of a show potentially canned at right when it finally started to figure out what it could be.

For some, 'The Cape' is now a superhero yarn with some genuinely off-center characters. For others, a weekly drinking game. For others, a chance to practice an at-home variation of 'Mystery Science Theatre 3000.' No show is one thing to all people, but 'The Cape' had come perilously close to meaning nothing to anyone.

The stakes around this two-part episode had something to do with a piece of waterfront property being both 1) the potential site of an privately owned arms dealing front, and 2) Ground Zero for the Palm City Zombie Apocalypse. Frankly? I got giddy writing that sentence. If you're gonna go crazy, go BIG crazy, I say. Having Vinnie Jones as the genetic offspring of a British gangster and a Kimono dragon just isn't crazy enough for me. But a crazy billionaire that drugs up Orwell to be his petrified bride while Ileana Douglas wanders in from the superhero version of Wysteria Lane? That's the type of loco I can embrace.



Keeping Summer Glau in stasis for an hour would have seemingly continued the hate crime this show seems to inflict on her on a weekly basis, but actually turned into one of the more interesting uses of her character to date. Psychedelic dreamscapes can be a crutch for a show to use, but since her character is so guarded, this may have been one of the only ways in which to get such a download of information about her.

Having Vince stand-in as her husband confirms the attraction hinted at in 'Goggles and Hicks,' but more intriguing were the hints about her mother. Seems like we've located the source of the split between Orwell (or Jamie, should we say?) and Peter Fleming, but things are still murky. What's not murky, based on what little we saw once Orwell walked through the imaginary door: Chess had something to do with her mother's fate. Either he took over Fleming at a crucial moment, or was born out of some accident involving her.

I'm not sure how we're supposed to handle Orwell's crush, given that Vince is more involved with his family than ever after injecting Dana in the mix this week. Maybe it's just that, a crush, and we can hope this plot never reaches an awkward moment in which Vince uses The Cape to aid in a sensual tango between them. Given my relative apathy towards Dana/Tripp, I can't say I'd mind a Vince/Orwell pairing, but I'm pretty sure that's the exact opposite of what the show wants right now. But hey, I no longer wish for Tripp to be struck mute anymore, so I guess this represents improvement on this front as well.

Perhaps this two-part Lich-centric storyline could help other shows conquer a current problem on the television landscape. Shows generally fall into two broad patterns: a series of stand-alone episodes or a longer-form, continuity-laced storyline in which episodes represent pieces of a larger puzzle. That's an oversimplification, to be sure, but there's nothing that says a show had to be either 'Law & Order' or 'Lost,' either.

'The Cape' seemed to tell its strongest story to date when it didn't do either extreme, but instead told a discrete story over two episodes instead of one. It gave the story room to breathe, but didn't make the writers stretch things out past their due date. Knowing the limits of a story is as important as the story itself when it comes to small-screen storytelling. Other shows could do worse than employ this model in their own season-long storytelling models. Maybe their version won't feature dockside zombie apocalypses, but hey, no one's perfect.


'The Cape' airs Mondays, 9PM ET on NBC.


What did you make of the back half of this two-part episode? Has 'The Cape' found more solid footing, or am I as crazy as The Lich himself? Leave your thoughts below!

Watch the full episode here: