Review: The Awesomes ‘MadeMan’

Spoilers Below:

It’s confirmed now. As I previously speculated, The Awesomes are in fact devoting each episode to a different character. And as I previously indicated, I’ve been looking forward to the Impressario one. This week we got it.

After attempting to get his Ambien prescription refilled, Impressario’s therapist got him to realize that he can’t conjure anything that isn’t partially his mother, suggesting that she still controls him.

Conveniently, right after this realization, Impressario’s mother fell for MadeMan (voiced by Bobby Moynihan) – a retired superhero/old-school Italian gangster. MadeMan also fell for her. (“This better not be the beginning of a falling in love montage.”) Frustrated by the unfolding events, Impressario smashed his jewel (which he knows is not the true source of his conjuring powers) and released himself from his mother’s bonds.

However, after beginning to get lonely, Impressario began conjuring up clones of himself, which in turn created other clones of himself (like Multiplicity), and then took over the city (unlike Multiplicity.) The Awesomes sprung into action to try to eliminate all the conjurings, but they weren’t stopped until Impressario walked in on his mother and MadeMan humping. The image was then conveyed to every one of the clones, and they all killed themselves.

Well, all but one. That clone, bent on destruction, joined Malocchio Jr. and The PRICKS – now five members strong.

Meanwhile, Perfect Man came out of hiding after getting a new identity in Italy courtesy of MadeMan. He lived his new life as a farmhand in some sort of Italian soap opera storyline for a while, but fucked things up and had to come back.

In Case You Missed It:

1) The other geriatric superheroes playing poker were CoPilot, Jazz Guy, The Human Television, & FaceBook (who used to throw books at people’s faces.)

2) Bridge is for pussies.

3) Impressario keeps his house stocked with ‘90s candy: Gushers, Fruit by the Foot, Fruit Roll-Ups, and something call Fruit Socks.

4) Muscle Man: “I’m just going to come out and say it, those black guys all look like Impressario.”

5) Despite the information not being used, it was revealed that Prock knows at least one way to kill every member of The Awesomes. Just in case.

6) Malocchio Jr. has the same therapist as Impressario. Small world, right?

As much as I had been anxiously awaiting this episode, it wasn’t quite as funny as I hoped. The writing wasn’t as witty as usual, and the laughs didn’t come as often as they had in previous installments this season. Part of that might be due to the Perfect Man storyline, which although clever, barely had any dialogue and thus not many jokes. In fact, the best line didn’t come until after Perfect Man returned and asked MadeMan what other completely new identities he has to offer.

Also, as I’ve mentioned in other reviews, I like having conflict in the episodes. Call me crazy, but superheroes should always be battling supervillains. Plus, in a cartoon comedy like this, I enjoy seeing all the different identities the writers can create.

In this episode, the foes were clones of Impressario. Were we really supposed to be concerned about that? Even with Muscle Man’s acceptance of inevitable defeat towards the end, the mob still didn’t seem very threatening. What was going to be the cause of death? Drowning in people? Getting trampled? All of the world’s oxygen being used up?

And oh yeah: Mr. Awesome and Dr. Malocchio didn’t appear at all in this episode. What the H are they up to?

This week was definitely good for a few laughs, but hopefully the last four of the season will finally see some Awesome-Prick action – a sentence that I can only hope won’t be one day used against me out of context.

Tune in next Monday on Hulu for another new Awesomes, and here on Tuesday for the review.