Review: The Awesomes ‘Tim Goes to School’

Spoilers Below:

As the name suggests, this episode of Hulu’s The Awesomes involved Tim/Sumo going back to school because, well, he’s a child. The Awesomes of course had to go with him as well, because superheroes need protection when they’re outside Awesome Mountain. Prock would play a professor, Concierge was a guidance counselor, Gadget Gal was a lunch lady, Impressario was an art teacher, and Muscle Man and Frantic were students – because they never actually finished school. Prock ended up being their teacher at the school (“He is the worst”) and saw his love life get more complicated as, in addition to having Jaclyn as a girlfriend, he was actively resisting advances from Muscle Man’s sister and a teacher at the school. Hotwire (disguised as Metal Fella) found out about this love square (or love pentagon?) and became quite jealous.

Tim also had some love issues, as he developed a crush on a girl and both of them received constant bullying by a few classmate hoodlums. Eventually Tim couldn’t hold back his Sumo anger any longer and revealed his superpowers. He later went on a rampage, which ended with his crush revealing that she too has special powers.

Meanwhile, Malocchio Jr. set off to assemble a gang of supervillains called People Really Into Crime and Killing Sprees (PRICKS) with his first member being the ape assassin from last week’s “Destination Deading.” At the end of the episode, Malocchio Jr. also asked the largest and douchiest of the school bullies to inject himself and join their team.

In Case You Missed It:

1) After getting back from an island of apes, the first movie Prock watched was Harry and the Hendersons.

2) The gang claimed they used the Perfect Man cardboard cutout (which was actually the real Perfect Man) to throw darts at, dump garbage on, and do sexy things to.

3) The capital of California is Sacramento. Knowing your state capitals could save 600 lives.

4) Aside from the fact that making the black guy play a janitor is racist, Impressario said he’d be an art teacher because he has a master’s degree in design, and “won’t be the janitor because I don’t have a master’s degree in English.” Zing!

5) In addition to running for their lives after seeing Sumo, the bullies yelled, “That was the coolest thing I ever saw!”

6) The fish in the bowl became sad when the sexy selfie disappeared from the phone’s screen whilst in the fishbowl.

7) The Stanford Prison Experiment was a weird reference to make. Because it was a weird event. Look it up.

8) I’m very happy to see that the ape assassin, a.k.a. Jeff Apelstein (Colin Quinn), will be sticking around.

9) “Yes! Very much!”

This episode was easily as funny as any of the other episode thus far this season, if not funnier. It had constant laughs, a few hearty ones, and an amusing plot. It was entertaining to see the different Awesomes fit into their respective roles, even though none of them were disguised very well. They pretty much just wore their costumes with an added accessory or two. But I suppose that was part of the humor.

I knocked last week’s episode a bit for not advancing the plot, so I should acknowledge that it was nice to see Jr./Purseman healthy again and actively scheming against The Awesomes. I mean, it’s not that great, because he’s the bad guy – but you know what I mean. It added more conflict to the episode, and even had a bit of a surprise at the end.

Also, it occurs to me that every episode this season has primarily focused on one specific, different character each week. First it was about Malocchio Jr. and his transformation, then the second episode introduced Jaclyn and established her relationship with Prock, the third dealt with Muscle Man and his family, and this one put Tim in the starring role. Not a bad approach for a series in its second season. The first one was a trial run, and it presented The Awesomes – as a whole – in all their awesome glory. But now they have a bit of security, which allows for a bit of flexibility to explore and develop the characters.

And if that really is the approach, then let me be the first to say: I can’t wait until the Impressario episode!