JCA: "The Jade Monkey". A rather mediocre ep revolving around the monkey talisman, which gives its bearer the ability to transform himself into an animal. Towards the end I was reminded of the "Dexter's lab" ep where DeeDee and Dex were morphing themself willy-nilly into innumerable beasties sith Dex's new transformer gadget. Though that was funnier. Last week's ep was better; it had more sight gags and laughs
Anyone else think that big-nosed monkey was Jackie?
It might have made a better script if Jade was faced with the quandry that as a monkey she couldn't speak and therefore couldn't activate the talisman.
Personally I think Tohru would have looked better as a gorilla.

BAT BEY: "Betrayal"
I've said for some time that a popular theme in the "Beyond" canon is betrayal. I mean, the writers are delving into a lot of dark themes with this incarnation of the Dark Knight: murder, infidelity, patricide, matricide, incest (to a point; cf. "Blast from the Past").
Terry's old buddy Big Time is back, and in cahoots with some rich goomba named The Major. Max describes him pretty spot on: his external hideousness is merely his internal montrous nature projected outward.
Big Time tells Terry that The Major is only using him as hired muscle and, with his ugly puss, he has no choice left. Terry promises to help him...after all, when it's someone you know that falls into something like this, you feel obliged to help.
The betrayal here is four-pronged: Terry feels he is betraying his Bat-oath by not doing more to detain/capture B.T. (and perhaps subconciously it is so), B.T. feels The Major is betraying him by not cutting him in for a bigger slice of the pie, B.T. betrays The Major and grabs up not just a slice but the whole frigging pie, and B.T. betrays Terry by lying about turning himself into the cops and letting the Wayne doctors try to cure his acromegaly. He says he is happy as a ten-foot-tall mutie who gets respect when he walks into a room, and that with The Major's resources he plans to become a god on earth. Though in this last one I pose this query: who is he really lying to, Terry or himself?
Get a load of B.T.'s room in the Major's pad. It looks like Chuck E. Cheese's. It seems that despite his age and size, Big Time is little more than a hideous Peter Pan...an emotionally stunted, eternal ten-year-old crying for attention, whose childish, self-serving schemes have not brought him the glory he lusted after but only twisted him body and soul.

X-MEN: "Speed and Spyke"
Somebody call Buffy!
OK, wrong Spike, though this kid *does* have a similar do. Rogue's nephew was born with the X-gene and can shoot bone fragments out of his skin. A, that is gross, and B, the way he used his power (the sneezing bone spears, the bone cage), I'm surprised he didn't collapse with osteoporosis in the first act.
Spyke's main rival is a fast-talking fast-running snothead named Pietro, aka Quicksilver...who if I'm not mistaken is Mageneto's son by Magda, the woman who left Eric Magnus La--Le--I can't spell the last name--after learning he was a mutant. Quicksilver recognizes Magneto, it seems, though doesn't address him in a familial manner.
Nit: Storm claims the X-gene skips a generation, so she has it, but Spyke doesn't. Though if Spyke's mother is Ororo's sister, she is from the *same* generation as she, so that doesn't quite ring right to me. I'm not sure that was worded precisely. Though maybe I'm just picky.
Ororo, babe--lay off on the makeup. You look like a two-dollar hooker. Seriously.
Watch the dinner scene. Seems the Xavier institute's curriculum doesn't include proper table manners.
DYN Blob, Toad, and Rogue outside Darkholm's office? Do only the mutie kids cut up at that school?

SS: "Sins of the Fathers"
This episode may be the highlight of the season. It was meaty, yet not overly Captain Planet preachy. Hopefully the writers can turn in more scripts like this one.
Richie invites--reluctantly--Virgil over to his house, where Virg realizes the old man is a bigot. He complains about "those people" and rap music vehemently, and his close-minded attitudes cause Richie to bolt. He falls in with some mutie goons--Armadillo Man from a few eps ago (plus his new buddy, a mutie pit bull) and with Ebon and his goon squad. Some might consider it shameless to tack on these lightweight goons to an otherwise pathos-filled script, but I feel merciful today, so I'll let it pass.
Virgil's father confronts Richie's old man about his attitudes after he makes several comments about the "punks" at a flophouse and admonishes him that the world is changing and it isn't all black and white anymore...and I think he listens, to his credit.
This episode will ring loudly in the ears of many of us who have parents who share similar attitudes about minorities, particularly us Southerners. I've seen racist attitudes in both my mother and my late father, and I try to take them with a grain of salt, because I know that they aren't born of any real malice...they're more (A) the way their parents raised them, with attitudes passed down from *their* parents over different generations and eras and (B) a largely self-protective behavior of not going into certain neighborhoods at night, associating with certain people, or adapting a "if-they-show-any-sign-of-trying-to-crush-me-I'll-crush-them-first" mindset. In my world there are a lot of minorities who fit in all to well with the negative image the racists purport, and I think it's made me jaded. One could say the same about most any group and its detractors. I try to keep an open mind...but in my world often an open mind eqauls an unguarded back.

MX STL: "Trapped"
A computer genius goes crackers and breaks into his former employer's offices to steal a ray gun he helped to invent...which he plans to use on the White House. A variation on the old "ex-cop-goes-gaga-and-turns-terrorist" formula.
Mediocre script. I spent this one just looking at the chick with the blue streak in her hair. Va-va-va-voom! I wonder how many eps more it'll be before Maxie finally bags this one too.
POK JJ: "Ignorance Is Blissey"
This one is a particularly poignant episode because it's Jessy-focused [blows a horn in celebration and throws streamers].
Ash and co. arrive at a pokemon center and meet up with ablundering Blissey (Chancey's evolved form). Ash gets knocked down, food dumped on him, and in a rather semi-porn scene in a hot tub ends up with long scratches on his back (from Chancey scrubbing him--and I can't wait to see the suggsestive writeup the Pokemopolisters give that bit).
It turns out that Blissey and Jessy are old schoolchums from nursing college. In those days Jessy (A) had Heidi hair and (b) was a lot sweeter--in fact, I suspected she was voiced by an entirely different actress as young Jessy). It seems that growing up poor, being abandoned by her mother, and then flunking out of nursing college led to to join TR and turned her into the loud, piggish coquette we all know and love. The girl has an emotional shell around her ahrder than a Cloyster, but watch her as the Rocketeers fly away with the grub. For once she actually shows *remorse* for her misbehavior. The shell cracks! Hoorah!
Now TR could have just left most of the grub, taken a few boxes for themselves, and left a little apology note, but showmanship (and stupidity) get the best of them, and they trumpet the motto and start what has to be one of the *oddest* Pokemon battles I've ever seen. Of course they grab for Pikachu and end up blasting off again...but I applaud Jessy's self-control.
Watch the scene with Jessy playing Lorena Bobbitt with a parsnip (a tad disturbing) and, surprisingly, Meowth getting piggy, grabbing, and running off with it.
DYN at the end James pronounced marmalade" as
? Perhaps he's British, which'd explain his ladies' clothes fetish (cf. "Benny Hll" or "The League of Gentlemen").

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