Review: Vixen S2: Episode 2

We return to Vixen for the second episode! Of six!

…let’s move on.

 

SPOILERS

Mari awakens from her electrocution by Weather Wizard to see her foster dad, Chuck, looking after her in the hospital. Along with Macalester, Chuck is basically one of the only things that really carry over from last season. Last year, Mari’s reluctance to reconnect with him after her foster mother died was about half of her character arc, being pretty stand-offish until he posted her bail (after stabbing a fashion designer that she was pitching designs to in the hand for soliciting her). Shortly after, her Totem activated when they were attacked by muggers, and so he becomes her sorta confidant from then on, as well as someone urging her to pursue her dreams of fashion design (which weirdly is never a significant part of the plots of either season thus far) instead of fighting crime. And we can see why considering how banged up she got from teaming up with Flash and Firestorm last week.

But there’s no rest for the weary, as while she was out, the Detroit Museum of Natural History was ransacked, the main loss being several gems, including the Zambesi totem that Macalester brought in. See, I told ya, shiny and in a museum in a superhero universe means you get nabbed. It’s just science. Chuck tells her to get some rest, and she agrees…until sometime later where she seems to be fully healed and chasing this guy named Drake down with a vengeance, going zero to a hundred real quick. Soon enough, she catches up to him, noting that he may have started from the bottom, but now he’s here, mainly because he always has dirt on heists like these, so he better cough up news on that Hotline Bling. But while he doesn’t know who did the job, he does know it was paid for by someone from Africa.

At an undisclosed location, the twin brother of Young Justice’s version of Dr. Hugo Strange arrives with the stolen gems. And I’m not kidding about the twin brother thing because this dude is literally the same design from that show but with a black beard. Similarly, Mari’s foster parents are basically Wally West’s parents from YJ also (although his dad has been darkened a bit to make Chuck), and scientist from the direct-to-video animated film “Justice League: War” is a minor character from YJ but given a race lift. As a fan of Young Justice, I’ve all but accepted we may not get a third season, but it would really help if they didn’t DANGLE CHARACTER DESIGNS FROM THE SHOW IN MY FACE.

Anyway, Dr. Weird is here to give the gems to Eshu, presumably the villain of this season. Eshu has come from Zambesi as well, meaning he knows full well of what the totems are capable of. Weird puts a flat price of $100,000, but makes the mistake of letting him hold the stone that gives someone fire powers before getting paid, so of course, he becomes the sacrificial lamb for Eshu to try out his new toy and is turned into flambé. Yeah, burn in hell you walking reminder of a canceled good show!

Just then, Mari shows up. No idea how she pieced together where to find this guy simply from hearing that the one who paid the robbers was from Africa, but here she is. I mean, all it would take to piece this together properly would be to add some detail like “the totems sense when another one is close by” like some shows with multiple users of magic artifacts tend to have, but no, she’s just psychic I guess. She instantly takes down the guards to confront him, which he responds to by pointing out she looks just like her mother. And like that, we are right back at where the season started with the opening scene I refused to describe, with them taking their fight out of the building and her demanding how he knew her mother. Well, at least we didn’t have to wait until the fourth episode like last time.

This episode pushes the plot along ever so slightly, with Mari finally meeting her main obstacle for the next two-thirds of the season: a fellow Zambesi villager who now has access to a totem like her own. Last season, the main conflict came from her aforementioned crazy sister Kuasa trying to get the Spirit totem back from her, but now we have two different ones going head to head, as well as an opportunity to learn more about Mari’s ancestry. I just hope Eshu doesn’t turn out to be her dad…

And a side note, on this week’s Legends of Tomorrow, the main team meet the Justice Society of America (with almost none of the really good members), and one of them is a former Vixen (who was never in the JSA in the comics, but I digress). The thing is, as much as I can believe there were other users of the totem that fought crime, there shouldn’t be any former VIXENS, since the end of Vixen’s last season had her taking up that name because Flash passed along that Cisco had started calling her that…mainly because she’s pretty hot. It’s a pretty weak way to get named, I admit, but it’s the explanation that came first, so…would it really hurt for the writers on LoT to have watched Vixen before including a similar character in their show? Maybe call the past-Vixen “Animal Woman” to reference Animal Man? C’mon, you guys love those little pointless easter eggs!