Review: The Awesomes ‘The Dames of Danger’

 

Spoilers Below:

As the ladies of The Awesomes were preparing for Chic Magazine’s Women of the Year Awards, Hotwire found out she was pregnant.

At the ceremony, the girls realized some of the other attendees – Joyce Mandrake, Lady Malocchio, Jaclyn Stone, and Muscle Girl – were suddenly leaving at the same time, and discovered they were members of the Dames of Danger, an elite all-female super team. The Dames invited the others along.

Their first mission together: retrieve classified government information from a villain named Backstory. Despite the Dames’ best attempts at extracting info from a number of individuals, Hotwire’s vomit unintentionally got them a lead. Backstory got away the first time, but the gang ended up catching him, and learned the buyer of the secrets was another villain named Longstory – who was chatting about her kids with Hotwire at the time. The two realized each other’s identities, and began to battle, with Hotwire emerging victorious. Her victory proved two reassuring things: First, Longstory is capable of being a supervillain and a mom, giving hope for Hotwire’s future. Also, Hotwire was able to handle a situation by herself while being with child.

Meanwhile, back at the house, the remaining Awesomes decided to remedy their “oppression” by hosting a Men Awards event. Prock didn’t win anything, much to his chagrin. (“I’m telling you, this ‘everybody gets a trophy’ culture: It doesn’t work if everybody doesn’t get a trophy!”)

As a consolation prize, Hotwire told Prock he is going to be a father.

In Case You Missed It:

1) A League of Their Own is apparently about the Dames of Danger, but the superhero element had to be changed to “lady baseball” for security purposes.

2) The Peabody Award is NOT shaped like a penis. And it’s not an award to recognize peeing with friends.

3) For some reason I loved the noise made by Jeffrey (Fred Armisen) when first balancing the spoon on his nose.

4) One of the casino signs simply read, “SPEND THE $$.”

5) This is Concierge using her information-obtaining power, with a sexy twist, while still being a progressive feminist: “Well hello, handsome. How about we each buy our own drinks, and have a discussion as equals?”

6) The end of Frantic’s acceptance speech: “Oh, and I should also thank everyone at CAA – which is something I always hear, but I do not know what it means.” For the record, CAA is the Creative Artists Agency.

For a show that’s almost always about superheroes getting a big mission, stumbling their way through it, and eventually besting their foe, the series has been doing a good job of keeping things unique from week to week.

In last night’s installment, the series chose not to focus on the Awesomes as a whole, but instead the ladies of the team, as well as basically every other lady that ever appeared on the show. This was successful for a number of reasons.

First, as I previously mentioned, it was fresh. The guys (Prock, Muscle Man, Impresario, Frantic, Sumo, and Perfect Man) took a backseat in the story, never getting to see any action, while the ladies kicked ass in their stead.

In addition to being different, this episode also scored some points for equality. Yes, I know, I’m reviewing a superhero cartoon – and I don’t want to get too preachy or political here – but most strong roles on TV or in movies are given to men, and that’s a misleading representation of what women are capable of. After all, Amy Poehler created Smart Girls, a series and cause aimed at helping girls achieve their goals while maintaining their individuality. Of course, the episode balanced out this strong female storyline by exposing their mission as a pointless, creepy, sexist one that sacked the only male involved: the team’s leader.

And finally, “The Dames of Danger” made up for the reduced role of the male Awesomes by bringing back female characters from past episodes. Most notably (in this writer’s humble opinion): Hooray for the return of Maya Rudolph as Lady Malocchio! She was one of my favorite personalities last season, and it was good to hear her high-pitched voice spouting out randomness once again. (“But I didn’t get my one phone call. I was going to call one of those TV psychics, because they can be so expensive.”) We also got to see Jaclyn back, which, although probably not a fan favorite, ushered Amy Poehler back into the show. Getting her, Rudolph, and Rashida Jones into one scene was wonderful.

This episode also saw more lines for one of my favorite characters, Gadget Gal, who is one of the most consistently funny characters in the entire show. She’s old school, she’s snarky, she’s not politically correct (“Gadget Gal: Don’t.”) and her old-timey voice (props to Paula Pell) is endlessly amusing. Even Muscle Girl (“Just let me have this.”) and Longstory spouting out stereotypically annoying tidbits about her kids was entertaining.

“The Dames of Danger” felt a little incomplete since there wasn’t a real mission, but it had a plot surprise, and was easily funny enough to make it a solidly unique and humorous week for the best show most people aren’t watching (and probably haven’t heard of.)