Review: Vixen S2: Episode 4

Family bonding, just add water!

Spoilers Below

Mari and a staggering Kuasa (now in a form-fitting red cat suit) arrive at some random mansion in Star City, which is believed by her to be the location of the Water totem. With the help of a cameo from Arrow’s Felicity, the two make it into the mansion without tripping any alarms, though Mari does have to ward off some guard dogs. They soon find the room holding the totem when SURPRISE, Kuasa becomes the wet blanket and double-crosses in order to take hold of the totem. Now in hot water, Mari must fight off another new enemy with elemental powers. Their fight signals whatever guards are nearby, but Mari releases the hounds on them.

Now that she’s gotten her feet wet, Kuasa makes a break for it…down this open, empty city street. Mari catches up, so Kuasa fires some giant torrents of water that she swims through, and then they just…keep running down the street for a bit. Just before this becomes boring, she’s caught by two more Arrow cameos: Brandon Routh’s Ray Palmer AKA The Atom, and Katie Cassidy’s Laurel Lance AKA Black Canary. I say ARROW’S The Atom instead of Legends of Tomorrow’s The Atom because the fact that he’s not on a time traveling space ship pretty clearly shows this takes place before that show begins. However, the fact that Ray is no longer tiny or being held prisoner by Damien Darhk AND that Laurel and Felicity are not dealing with the Hawkpeople/Vandal Savage business seems to support my theory that this season of Vixen takes place entirely between Episode 7 of Arrow’s fourth season and Episode 8 of Flash’s second. Yessir, continuity is a grand thing. Now maybe that we know Ray has already met someone with a totem, he can bring it up when he meets her predecessor on his own show? And the way Mari and Laurel were so familiar with each other in Mari’s later appearance on Arrow made it seem like she was more involved than this, but maybe that’s referring to the last two unreleased ones.

But yeah, seems these two were backup in case Kuasa pulled…exactly what she did. Finally having a chance to talk, Mari pleads with her to actually work together on this. Eshu killed their father and their home and is about to destroy Mari’s new one. So, along with Atom, Canary, and Felicity on comms, the temp team is formed. This times perfectly with Felicity getting word that Eshu is now setting all of Detroit on fire because…well, it is the most flammable city in that state, so smoke em if you got em.

With given time, it could seem like this show is dragging its feet with this episode’s events, but I think this was a necessary interlude. As much as it might be expected for Kuasa to simply be a reluctant good guy now, it is important for her to find her way back to power, and THEN willingly join the cause of her own free will. Her whining to Mari in this and last episode about being the one who is truly suffering and powerless didn’t exactly help to make her easy to sympathize with, but it did help to show how her viewpoint changes once Mari actually reaches out to her for help. Now both sisters have totems to fight a mutual enemy, which will get double the length to play out, just like last season’s final two.  This also gives us a nice final shot of them looking at each other lovingly while their totems glow at the same time. Meaningful shot is meaningful. So, aside from yet more signs of how cheaply made the animation is and how actor likenesses and voices do not translate well from live action to animation, I think this show is keeping some steady beats.