You know things are bad when the title character of your series doesn’t do anything till the last five minutes of an episode. The last two episodes of The Cape have seen hero Vince Faraday (David Lyons) do almost nothing but rather sit around until someone else acts before he makes his last-minute appearance. Vince’s sole claim to fame in this episode was learning to walk a tight-rope for a 30-second scene, and that’s not the worst of it. The series continues to have focus problems as it waywardly throws in plots simply as a means to make sure the viewers are aware of certain character. While this episode had a particularly interesting villain in Dice (Mena Suvari) it only made Vince less and less important.
This week sees the introduction of Dice, aka Tracey Jerrod, a brilliant savant with the ability to predict future events. Dice holds a grudge against Peter Fleming (James Frain) for murdering her father and using her ability for a program that will predict the future. As she plans to assassinate Fleming it puts a wrench in Vince’s plans as he’s forced to protect Fleming and take down Dice.
All things considered I really enjoyed Dice and Mena Suvari. Dice is not just a typical troubled child with a grudge but she’s incredibly bright and calculating. Her attempts on Peter’s life were unique and challenging making me wish at times the series was named after her. Her banter with Fleming was a bit out of place but Suvari more than proved capable and actually seemed more chilling opposite Frain. It doesn’t seem like we’ll be seeing more of her unfortunately but she single-handedly saved this episode.
When Dice isn’t around we’re simply stuck with Vince doing a whole lot of nothing. Seriously the majority of the episode was him and Orwell (Summer Glau) watching Dice do things. Oh and the highlight was Vince learning to tightrope to make it into a building, a ten minute scene that resulted in a 30-second climax. The biggest issue was the emphasis that Dice couldn’t be killed because she could help prove Vince’s innocence yet at the end they leave her to be arrested, so do you expect her to cooperate since you sent her to prison Vince? Stupid questions like this continued to pop up as we learn that Fleming killed Tracey’s father yet we never truly learn why, if we did it must have been quick because I have no recollection of it. The episode also tries to make a Mr. and Mrs. Smith type romance between Fleming and Dice that seems bizarre since he keeps emphasizing his “feelings” for Dice yet the two have only met for a second. Another query, Fleming looked exactly the same when he first met Tracey who we meet around the age of eight; if Fleming is in his early 30’s wouldn’t Dice be a lot younger? Oh and in case you forgot poor Dana (Jennifer Ferrin) and Trip Farraday (Ryan Wynott) they have a few pointless scenes about Dana wanting to read a comic book to Trip and then crying again. I swear this woman must have had no parenting skills because every time Trip gets a paper cut she’s sobbing about how she’s “not as good as your dad!”
The final 30 seconds showing how Vince was meant to meet Max (Keith David) was interesting but was a cop-out considering it should have been developed throughout the whole episode. A lot of this episode could have been cut to not make those final seconds seem so shocking. Hopefully Vince will actually get off his ass and do something next week, or he’ll just learn to tame an elephant or something. Dice was great, but she again proved that Vince and The Cape are utterly boring.
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