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The Tick
Episode: "The License"
Writer: Larry Charles
Director: Craig Zisk
Original Airdate: 12/6/01
The Tick battles one of the most dangerous juggernauts of villainy ever to be witnessed by the unfortunate eyes of a mere mortal... the DMV. Okay, see, that kind of superhero vs. mundanity gimmick can only go so long before I start getting annoyed with the conspicuous lack of supervillains. Sure, we’ve got plenty of hints of villains here and there.
A robber in the previous episode, a superhero stuck up a robot’s ass this episode, but since the pilot’s soviet killbot, we haven’t seen so much as a scale from Dinosaur Neil’s hide nor a splinter of Chairface Chippendale unupholstered head.
Hear me, Mr. Edlund. There’s only so much a humble geek demigod like myself can take before the flirtations with supervillainy grow too much to bear! Please give us something! I understand that the budget can only afford so many mutants and freaks per episode but give us Zipperneck, the Terror, or Brain Boy! That shouldn’t be so hard, right?
Surely, Tongue-Tongue won’t be in line until the show gets uber-successful (I hope) but come on, bring on the Human Ton or Man-Eating Cow! Right.
So this week’s adventure into banality involves Tick applying for a superhero license only to discover that he doesn’t know his own past and neither does anyone else. After plenty of searching, a woman arrives at the police station claiming to be Tick’s wife. Feeling dejected and betrayed with Tick’s enthusiasm with getting a new wife, Arthur hangs up his flying suit.
Meanwhile, Janet decides to hook up with a guy she ran into at the dry cleaners who doesn’t know that she’s a superhero. She tries her hand at being "normal" and reveals just how cute Liz Vassey is out of costume. Janet’s date with the Dry Cleaner guy goes pretty well until she beats up a mugger, then she decides superheroing is where she’ll stay.
She suits up as does Arthur and together they discover that Tick’s "wife" is a psycho who claims missing men as her husband. They rescue Tick from her clutches with little effort.
Okay, I know this isn’t the usual type of superhero genre show but surely there’s as much opportunity for humor in supervillains as there is in an underwhelming tale of "maybe being a superhero isn’t that great. No wait, it is" character development. There are certain shows where villains-of-the-week simply don’t work, but this is the Tick. Tick was made for the weekly villain.
Episode Rating: 7 out of 10
Daniel Solis battles the evil of his university’s financial aid office every semester.
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