Review: Supermansion “Iliga Their Own”

There’s no crying in furniture assembly!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Devizo’s new League, the League of Freedom West Side, makes their debut by stopping some of their former villainous colleagues from a prison break, but Rex is just glad to have them out of the mansion. What he’s not glad about is the arrival of Ivan Whiff, who won the contract to refurbish the mansion, and starts at his own personal furniture store, Iliga, which is cheap as hell but also impossible to put together without breaking. Ranger, still mentally stuck in the 40’s just as the writers are stuck in thinking this bit was ever funny, has it out for the Swedes for being neutral in World War Two. Typical IKEA-esque shenanigans ensue until Whiff notices Robobot is uniquely adept at data organization and attempts to recruit him over to his own prospective team (made out of anger for Rex giving Devizo his own team)…but he naturally declines.

Saturn is still hurting over the most recent loss of Groaner as his nemesis and finds an unlikely option, Bugula (Jordan Peele), who ALSO declines vehemently until Saturn pushes him too far, leading to a Bane-like back breaking that leaves him hospitalized. In retaliation, Rex and the rest of the team get serious and beat Whiff’s team into submission. Also, Lex is feeling jealous not seeming attractive compared to Cooch, to which Robobot finds she is perfectly attractive to INSECTS, a side effect of her mother being Frau Mantis. I guess Max Penalizer was part beetle or something.

Also also, the new West Side League is having second thoughts about their official reformation like court-appointed Alcoholics Anonymous participants. Or at least, all of them except Johnny Rabdo, who might be totally onboard for all we know. But Devizo assures them there’s a greater plan in play: This team will wait until it has earned the trust of the public, then betray them and destroy the reputation of the League as a concept, as well as Rex’s. Not quite as compelling as the plan by the League of Villains in My Hero, but it’s something.

OUR TAKE

I guess I only have myself to blame for getting my hopes up because that seemed like pretty typical Supermansion fare, which is to say not great. Superheroes going to get furniture is a situation that is ripe for comedic situations, but everything involved seems so basic. Ranger has his grudges, Rex is wary of villains, Saturn is a loser who obsesses over having a villain to fight, Cooch is dumb and everyone’s attracted to her, and Lex is taking a week off from even potential development as it turns out she’s being physically changed by her mantis genetics, and the end result is a minor villain from the first season showing up just to get his ass beat and Saturn getting his back sprained. Unless this new aggressive play by the League is going to have bigger ramifications than taking down the owner of a cheap furniture store, this seemed a lot like filler.

And just as an aside, do they really need to keep reminding us how ruined Portia’s life is? She had such a good ending at the end of the last season and now her life is in shambles. Did Yvette Nicole Brown take a dump on a Crackle executive’s desk or something? I’m just saying, Portia and Zenith were still pretty interesting enough characters when they WEREN’T part of a forced love triangle, and this show’s not exactly doing so well in the “female characters not focused on the opinions of males characters”, so it couldn’t hurt!

Though the only other major thing of note, besides this show somehow making me notice the absence of a one-trick fitness-themed bad guy, is the West Side League’s move forward to the next phase of their plans. They all seemed genuinely bummed out at finally being heroes (the boring uniforms not helping), but is that really the only way they’ll ever choose? I guess Groaner’s back to being totally fine with villainy, but does that mean he’ll be fine with fighting Saturn again? Does Devizo have a bigger plan than this, based on the established TV rule of sharing the plan with the viewer meaning the plan will inevitably fail? Will they be recruiting the two villains seen at the beginning that were at least once voiced by Jon Berthnal and Donald Faison? And more importantly, is it every truly too late for a St. Patrick’s Day special? Because that’s what we seem to be getting next week when Cooch finally faces her fear of Leprechauns