Review: Mike Tyson Mysteries: “Broken Wings”

Baby, it’s all I know. That you’re half of the flesh and BLOOD THAT MAKES ME WHOLE

YEAAAAAH, YEAAAAAH, YEAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

*ahem*

Pigeon, also known formerly as Richard, holds a peculiar place in the cast of Mike Tyson Mysteries (and I’m not just talking about him being a talking animal since it’s basically the law that you have to have one if you want a legitimate mystery team). Whereas Mike and Marquess are existing people and have fictionalized versions of their lives to work from, and Yung is basically just meant to play co-straight man with Marquess, Pigeon gets to have his own backstory and pathos to work from. Sure, he functions as the Dirty Joke Generator, but his purpose as a character goes much farther. For one, he is background, as a man turned pigeon by his ex wife, serves as something to add some intriguing things to think about regarding why he is the way he is, and even becomes the focus of an episode last season. He’s also apparently a pretty worldly person who seems very disillusioned with finding his place in said world because of his tragedy.

And this is where we find him at the beginning of this episode, as he takes a Uber of shame back to the house and is shooed out of it as he vomits and urinates all over the seat and then collapses as he tries to turn off the alarm. After Yung and Marquess manage to keep Mike from getting the vet to euthanize him, Pigeon tells the team of his night, mainly how he got drunkenly lured into a craigslist ad that turned out to be a mugging, but luckily he’ll make a full recovery.

Jump to six months later, where the team reads a new mystery from one Thomas Hollinger, who needs help transferring stuff to the cloud. Everyone is gung-ho to get on the case, except for Pigeon, who is still drowning himself in painkillers and lager. After Marquess recommends his boyf…I mean Poker Buddy as a “healer”. What that means, we never quite learn for sure, but it seems to work out pretty well. Pigeon makes it home to help with the cloud transfer, only to find through watching some of the videos that the guy who sent the mystery is actually a serial killer. Fearing for his friends’ lives and cut off by bad reception, Pigeon…no, RICHARD, collects himself and, at the risk of his own life, finally learns to fly again, and learns to live so free. A new man-bird who has saved his friends’ lives, Richard decides he’ll take the scenic route home on his newly mended wings.

And then a red-tailed hawk takes him out and leaves him in even worse shape because this show is a slave to the status quo. Yippee.

Well, aside from that last minute turn around, I really enjoyed this episode. For a character likely born from Mike Tyson’s real life enthusiasm for actual pigeons (seriously, google that, it’s real), the writers have really learned how to turn this bird into a fully developed person. This show is really at its best when it balances the character work with the comedy, but that probably goes for a lot of shows. Nevertheless, seeing this kind of exploration of Richard’s character is pretty unparalleled in the show at the moment, and I hope we can get something like it for Yung and Marquess, because let’s face it, Mike’s pretty much stuck where he is for a reason.

I also hope everyone got my Mr. Mister reference in the caption, because dang it, “Broken Wings” is a pretty great song!

 

SCORE
9/10