Something interesting happened this week on The Cape…it went from lacking in writing to lack in excitement. Yes, I was completely bored with this week’s installment entitled Goggles and Hicks. The writers have so much they could work with and instead decide to focus all their attention away from Max (Keith David) and the mysterious carnival to the bland “hero” Vince Faraday (David Lyons) and his Road Runner/Coyote antics with Peter Fleming (James Frain). The writers truly need to work on what works but if the ratings keep their downward trend there won’t be any exploring.
This week sees Vince give The Cape a day off but he and Orwell (Summer Glau) find themselves being tracked by the mysterious Goggles (Pruitt Taylor Vince) and Hicks (Chad Lindberg). After putting a homing beacon on Vince the two men follow him in order to kill him at the request of Fleming. Meanwhile, Dana (Jennifer Ferrin) confronts Marty (Dorian Missick), the newly elected Chief of Police, on what he truly knows about Vince’s death while Trip (Ryan Wynott) makes a new friend.
At this point The Cape works in very small doses, the individual things are what I enjoy about this show. This week had an excellent guest-star in Pruitt Taylor Vince who is always a delight on the screen even though he usually plays the same techno snitch character. I also found myself enjoying Tripp’s story this week as he bonded with new arrival Gerry (Grant Collins). Collins was a breath of fresh air as he was the loveable little geeky kid that you always see in these types of shows but here he really connected with Tripp and gave him a sense of normalcy. Lately Tripp has just been known to whine but here he had a moment to be a child, including gorging on ice cream which you never really saw. It also connected back to the opening scene of Vince and Dana talking about having another child, shocking since the series has had a really hard time connecting the flashbacks to the main plot. Hopefully Collins will stick around as the loveable Gerry Blander, even his name is cute! Also props to Dana for finally connecting that Marty knows more than he’s said about Vince although it took her far too long in my opinion.
Unfortunately the individual bits did not combine to make a solid episode. Why are we wasting the fantastic Keith David with bookend scenes? He’s been showcased in the beginning and end of far too many episodes which is ridiculous considering he’s supposed to be a main character. This week played out like a cartoon with him and the carnival as they tried to crack a safe. Max had a handful of lines and was merely set-dressing! You have a great character writers, use him! Goggles and Hicks, the characters used as the replacement for anything of interest, just followed Vince on his day off and discovered he was the Cape which didn’t sustain my interest at all. Fleming continues to be the most ineffective villain ever making others do his dirty work. Note to Fleming, when a guy says “And there’s this…” best not to cut him off and fire him because he may just hold the crucial information you paid him for! Orwell and Vince’s romance continues to not gel and it’s combined with another wasted character in Summer Glau’s Orwell. Dana continues to take tips from the Bad Parents Handbook because did she leave Tripp alone all night? We see her leave at night and she returns at daybreak…great parenting mom!
I shouldn’t be forced to use so many exclamation points but the writers are just squandering what’s right in front of them. Characters like Max, Rollo and the other circus performers are literally pushed to the side in favor of a Moonlighting romance between two characters that are about as interesting as watching paint dry. Combine that with a villain that’s an idiot and you have The Cape. All I can ask of the writers is to bring back the Gerry Blander character…and with my luck we’ll never see him again. Until next week!
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