The team gears up to leave for a company retreat when supervillain Dr. Psycho releases a toxic gas in Charm City; Emily does her best to make the most of a terrible situation.

Powerless doesn’t bounce back from last week’s episode as this one is a bit… blah, at best. The episode basically has the team stuck in a room with the threat of their dying if they head out of it and breathe Dr. Psycho’s toxic gas. The point of the episode is for the team to be stuck in a situation where they’re force to bond, it’s a tv plot we’ve seen so many times before, and this version doesn’t add anything to the formula.

Part of the episode’s issue, beyond it being a reused plot and adds nothing to it, is that there weren’t any jokes. The humor comes from props and no one really pulls it off. The biggest jokes involve either t-shirts the team is supposed to wear or the fact that Emily has to wear the pee bucket on her head in an attempt to free everyone.

When it comes to the interactions or what’s said, there’s not much there. Van makes a joke about wiping his own butt and there’s a joke about Ron using his cuteness to disarm folks. That’s it.

The series was looking good, but things have slipped these last two episodes where the concept is better than the actual final product. Where once I thought the series was finding its voice, it definitely is struggling now. The concept is there, the writing just isn’t

Overall Rating: 5.85

Emily has her first board meeting and must deliver on a big idea with the help of Green Fury; Teddy tries to find a way to get Green Fury’s attention; Jackie brings her daughter to work.

Powerless has misogyny on the mind with an episode that attempts to examine objectification of women through humor and falls so short in so many ways.

The episode kicks off with Green Fury being saved by Emily who uses that to then attempt to use her in a marketing campaign. That campaign then spirals our of control when the male dominated board gets involved and the intended add featuring Green Fury has her naked at one point. Then add in Teddy being obsessed with Green Fury and attempting to get her attention which only comes off as a stalker. Teddy is one of the main characters this show revolves around and this episode, along with the last, cast him in a negative way which taints the humor going forward. It also deflates the show a bit, you’ve just discovered one of the characters is an asshole (more than the snarky one he’s been shown as).

Where Powerless has succeeded most was when it was a workplace comedy that just so happened to have superhero elements thrown in. It’s when it’s focused on being a comedy. Here it feels like a concept episode first and then a comedy is attempted to be squeezed in. The comedy comes second and it attempts to achieve that comedy through Teddy presenting him in a negative way.

And what’s weird is, if the episode just focused on the board making negative decisions it’d have been all the stronger as these are characters we’ll likely never see and aren’t supposed to have an attachment to. There’s also the twist at the end of how the ad plays out that’s actually funny in a wink sort of way. You can see how easily a different direction in how it’s presented would make it all the stronger.

This episode is full of missteps and hurts itself going forward by doing so.

Overall Rating: 6.05

When Emily has to put up a fight to get her own office, she challenges Van to a competition. Meanwhile, after Teddy’s life is saved by Green Fury, he goes to great lengths to see her again.

Powerless is interesting with a bit of a shuffling of episodes and bringing this one to us a bit earlier than the episode release order that’s been released, but that’s not a big deal at all as the series gets back to its more humorous roots with the expected lessons learned from situations.

There’s two main stories, Emily wanting her own office and challenging Van to get it and Teddy becoming obsessed with Green Fury after falling off a ledge and being saved by her.

The Teddy story with Green Fury is a bit weird and what is supposed to be cute comes off as weird, especially when he’s an utter dick towards the woman he’s actually seeing at the end of the episode. He attempts to get Green Fury’s attention through various means and it feels like it’s a little stalkerish. It is nice to see tropes flipped and the man being saved by the female superhero, but Teddy’s follow up is a bit odd. And in fairness, I always though Lois falling for Superman after being saved was odd too.

The other part of the episode again revolves around Van and his being an utter dick to the staff. It’s a weird follow up to the previous week when he shows the same behavior over use of his bathroom. I think the use of Van of the series is some of its biggest missteps where it can’t decide if he’s supposed to be the bumbling comedic boss (like Michael Scott on The Office) or if he’s supposed to be mean and petty. These last two episodes lean too heavily on the latter making Van an almost unlikeable character sucking the humor from the episode and series. It’s weird to see and the writers feel like there’s just not a good handle on Van being the joke, the center of jokes, or just being mean.

The overall episode is better than the previous week but when half of the episode is borderline mean spirited it’s hard to get completely into the show. When Van’s character gets better settled, the show will see vast improvement.

Overall Rating: 6.35

When Emily learns that Jackie needs some extra cash, she tries to help her out; Van is on a witch hunt and sets his eyes on Teddy, Ron, and Wendy.

Powerless is a bit of a mixed bag with an episode that mainly feels like its role is to address Emily’s personality and how it generally clashes with the rest of the cast. Her pluckiness is in contrast with everyone who I’d generally describe as sarcastic and a bit dickish.

When it comes to Emily the story has to do with her and Jackie’s relationship and Emily’s habit of meddling. There’s some solid jokes about using people’s names as a way to describe an act or habit. It’s a topic that’s been discussed on other shows before but the patter shows the solid chemistry of the cast as a whole and the easy back and forth. The story itself at least addresses an issue I’ve had at times with the series and it feels like maybe the episodes are out of order since Emily dials it down a bit in various episodes. After this one, that makes some more sense.

The second half of the episode is Van accusing people of using his private bathroom. The punchline is obvious and not all that funny since it’s so predictable. As Van grills Teddy, Ron, and Wendy over the incident the episode forgets the laughs. In fact, it emphasizes a lot of the negative aspects of the characters making them snarky and again dickish. It had me cheering for one of them to be fired. Through the whole situation, the focus seem to be that the situation itself was the joke for folks to laugh at. It wasn’t. It just didn’t click.

We’ve seen better episodes from the series, so it’s a bit disappointing to see it take some steps back these last couple of episodes. They can’t all be winners, but when the show as a whole isn’t running on all cylinders one misstep seems amplified. And what the show seems to truly miss is that it’s a comedy first, a superhero show second. Get the laughs down and the rest will follow.

Overall Rating: 6.05

Emily convinces Teddy to enter a revolutionary invention into the Wayne Innovation contest; Van has Ron assemble a toy in hopes of preoccupying his new girlfriend’s child.

Powerless gives us a perfectly acceptable episode that has a few chuckles as it plays things as a pretty standard comedy. While the last few episodes showed improvement, this one has plateaued in a way. That’s not bad, it’s just this episode hasn’t shown the growth like previous episodes. I can bet describe this as a mediocre episode of The Office. It’s not bad, it’s also not good either.

The set up of the episode is an invention contest for Wayne Enterprises which sets off a series of jokes about gloves that warm things up. It’s interesting in that it’s not a bad idea but the episode feels like the writers were focused on fitting in as many jokes revolving around the gloves as possible. They’re not a part of the comedy, they are the comedy. It works at times, but it’s a little tiring after a time.

The funnier aspects of the episode involve Van and Ron. Ron is tasked with putting things together to impress Van’s girlfriend’s kid. It paints Van in the shallow corner that he inhabits but jokes involving Wonder Woman’s invisible jet are actually inspired and original. One particular scene gave me the biggest chuckle of the episode.

Again, this wasn’t a bad episode, it just ends the growth we’ve seen the last few. Hopefully, the show continues to involve and improve down the road. There’s lots of potential and we see that here. It’s taken a while for the series to find its footing, now it just needs to up its game a bit.

Overall Rating: 6.95