Johnny: "It occurred to me while Avila was pinning my head to my stairwell that we're going about this the wrong way."The Dead Zone ripped off Rocky here, right down to some of the dialogue. (Didn't the eye scene sound familiar?) Sure, there were differences: instead of the basically decent Apollo Creed, they gave us Darryl Tibbs, a clone of the ear-ripping jailbird Mike Tyson; Danny's wife was pregnant; and of course, Johnny's visions were the real focus of the story.
I kept waiting for the Dead Zone twist. Why won't countering the combination be enough? Was it drugs on Tibbs' glove? Was there a medical reason that Johnny couldn't see, like Todd in season one's "Quality of Life"? Was it that Tibbs really wanted to kill Danny, and nothing was going to stop him? I was interested in the fact that Johnny's prediction made the fight hotter with the public, confirming what we all know: when people attend a fight, they're secretly hoping to see blood. I also thought it was interesting that Johnny's prediction became a self-fulfilling prophecy – at least until the happy ending. But all this wasn't enough to make this episode a winner.
Bruce quoted his father at one point: "What makes hope reality is faith." So the moral of this episode was, faith is stronger than fate. Believe in yourself. Ehh.
Bits and pieces:
— Black Cloak Guy was back for the third time. No lines, but we got something of a close-up. I assume we'll finally find out who he is and why he's stalking Johnny in the season 2.5 finale.
— DZ doesn't usually do added music, but it worked here to jazz up :) a weak episode. I liked the first rap song; the words were terrific. The second song was okay.
— Johnny's attempts to help Danny counter the combination by telling him what Tibbs would do had its negative ethical implications. Although with Tibbs being such a prince, it was hard to have qualms about it.
One out of four stars,
Billie
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We love comments! We moderate because of spam and trolls, but don't let that stop you! It’s never too late to comment on an old show, but please don’t spoil future episodes for newbies.