Review: Mike Tyson Mysteries “The Beginning”

The End Is The Beginning Is The End.

Spoilers Below

Still reeling from the emotionally devastating finale of Samurai Jack? Why not raise your spirits with some delving into the origins of another iconic character? And when you’re done with watching Alien: Covenant, there’s also this week’s episode of Mike Tyson Mysteries!

Well, screw me for thinking we’d completely done with continuity since this episode starts with Marquess rolling out a giant picture of the old house like some home renovation program to show off the amazing changes! Those outside changes mainly being changing the cathedral windows to bay windows, and removing the two big pillars in frontAs Mike and Yung check out the old and new parts of the house, they get called over by Pigeon to another new installment: The wall of family photos! Or at rather, the family sans Pigeon, to his disappointment. This outrage gets quieted by Yung noticing close by a picture of Mike shaking hands with former President George W. Bush, which was the team’s very first mystery, back in the summer of 2001 (which seems a bit more 70’s in this flashback than I remember it being). The mystery in question turns out to be requested by then-Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who leads them in all Aaron Sorkin “walk-and-talk” style, stopped only by one staff member, McAfee, who has something he needs to talk to Card about but is immediately shot down and…

…wait. Summer of 2001…President George W. Bush…an urgent matter shooed aside…no. No, they couldn’t…they wouldn’t. WOULD they?

Well, no, thank god, the first mystery the team goes on is NOT failing to prevent 9/11. It actually takes place shortly after, as Card wants them to help Bush pick out a turkey to pardon, which the team decides to leave toddler Yung, who ends up picking the white turkey and that’s the end of that story. But the episode’s still got a few minutes left, so Yung points out another photo of someone who none of them recognize. The picture then begins talking to them, apparently named Abner and being the previous owner of the house, who then opens a portal for them to save his family from a witch who continuously kills Abner’s family and feeds them to him. After pointing out how he could have used that portal to get out of this nightmare, they run back to the present and leave them to their fate.

So, it was pretty clear that, even with a passing familiarity with this show, this was not going to be a fully fleshed out investigation of how former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson met his adoptive daughter, a ghost, and a talking pigeon and got them to go on mysteries with him. Not only does the 11-minute runtime of this show not give them nearly as much room as that would take but also because, as I said last week, this show revels in throwing off expectations and mercilessly parodying them like a car that only knows how to drive off beaten roads. In this case, the “Origins” episode with next to no actual new information given, and a lot of it up in the air about how it actually happened based on what Mike says about embellishing for the audience. The stuff with Abner old-guy-name at the end does seem a bit tacked on, mainly because it is, but it does remind me a bit of how some episodic shows would add arbitrary significance to the main character’s home for a plot, and also situations where some magic character could probably get themselves out of a situation but then decides to rope in main characters, also just for contriving a plot. Though while it’s still funny, it does seem like this episode could have stayed a bit more focused just sticking to the turkey stuff. You’ve got plenty of time to fit in all these tropes, guys, no need to rush. Also kinda peeved that this didn’t have any link to the show’s very first episode, weirdly titled “The End”, but this show pretty much just aims to screw with you on a weekly basis at every turn.

Next time, looks like the team has to deal with love letters, yard sales, and a freshly dead body!

 

SCORE
7/10