Review – The Awesomes ‘The GayFather’

Spoilers Below:

Presidential candidate Mr. Awesome (still evil, by the way) enlisted Prock as his campaign manager in order to turn around his public image – or so he said. He also needed help taking down Fuego, a disgruntled former superhero partner of Mr. Awesome, currently holding potentially damaging information. Prock, Perfect Man, and Muscle Man then set off on a trip to obtain it. Although they didn’t read the file, the documents’ contents were revealed to viewers, which stated that Perfect Man is actually the illegitimate son of Mr. Awesome.

Meanwhile, Frantic was dumped by his boyfriend, and the others took him clubbing to raise his spirits. He met someone, but they were a member of the Gay Mafia, a supervillain group. Turns out Frantic was actually being recruited by the GayFather, who wanted his help in releasing a radioactive substance into the water supply which would immediately out any closeted gays – in addition to harming them, because radiation. Frantic eventually decided against it, and he and the other Awesomes squared off with the Mafia. They good guys won, and Frantic’s new boyfriend saw the error of his ways.

At the end, Dr. Malocchio finally completed his journey back to Earth, with a couple more roadblocks along the way. After finding out his daughter is pregnant, he immediately informed the Awesomes that Mr. Awesomes is evil and needs to be stopped.

In Case You Missed It:

1) The news headline said, “Public Furious at Mr. Awesome-ly Poor Performance.”

2) Mr. Awesome’s rejected campaign slogan: “Parasites: Let me be your host.”

3) Gadget Gal’ assessment of the gay club: “It looks like Walt Disney threw up all over the Copacabana.”

4) The Gay Mafia is “into all kinds of shady rackets: counterfeiting antiques, blackmailing closeted celebrities, interior design…”

5) The boys’ road trip postcards indicated that they visited Kernsville, U.S.A.; the Hall of Macaroni Presidents – Paxton County, U.S.A.; Doc Shoemaker’s House o’ Wax – Meyers County, U.S.A.; and the World’s Largest Bathroom Line.

6) Young Perfect Man’s (Perfect Boy’s?) clinical assessment listed heat vision, laser eyes, and flying – but not x-ray vision, super hearing, or super strength.

7) The closing to Joyce Mandrake’s letter was “Shutup.”

Generally I would say I enjoy episodes of The Awesomes in which the whole cast is working together to complete their goal. We often have a side story about Mr. Awesome, or Dr. Malocchio, or Perfect Man and the “New Awesomes,” but the core usually stays as one unit. There’s so much and such different chemistry between the various members that by not having them all present at once, you lose a lot of potential humor.

An exception to this was the episode two weeks ago, “The Dames of Danger,” which split up the guys and the girls. I found this to be a successful installment because it was pro-equality (yay for ladies), but still managed to make fun of everyone in some way. The ladies’ version was funny for its absurdity, and the fact that girls do tend to get stepped on, even when someone is trying to raise them up. And the guys proved that they can have a blast without their better halves, but are also complete idiots.

In this episode, however, the split wasn’t quite as successful. Perfect Man and Muscle Man are two of the funniest characters, and to keep them in one story while Frantic stars in the other one, was a bit short-sighted. Especially since Frantic was shown to be pretty weak here, and most of the real thinking had to be executed by the rest of his team.

I also didn’t care for the fact that this other storyline was essentially one long gay joke. Not that gay jokes can’t be funny, but I feel like they were reaching a bit at times. Perhaps the mission devised by the Gay Mafia could have been a bit more interesting. I mean, would gays really want to out others who are remaining in the closet for whatever reason? I get that everyone should be free to be themselves and not hide anything, but the truth is that not everyone is comfortable with homosexuality, and some folks who are close with people like that might want to avoid the trouble and not breach the subject.

I realize there was a bit of over-analyzation there, but my point remains: the Gay Mafia was handed a weak plotline.

Thankfully there was still a bit of humor in this segment, and it actually had two other stories (the road trip and Malocchio) to round out the rest of the episode and the laughs. In the end, this was still a fine episode, but it registered a tad lower than the average for the rest of the season.