The Cape, continued

So in the second half of what was clearly meant to be two episodes that the studio spliced together, The Cape continued as follows (spoilers ahoy!):

The Cape visits Chess in his penthouse and is stabbed by a knife guy named Cain, who is a master of poisons as well (although if he was master of either he wouldn't really need to be a master of both, would he?).

River from "Firefox" takes The Cape to Keith David who uses his smooth, smooth voice to talk the poison out of him... No, wait, he just puts leaches on The Cape's neck and injects him with even more poison. After The Cape recovers Keith David uses his smooth, smooth voice to tell him that he's not allowed to wear the cape anymore because it will kill him.

The Cape isn't going to take any of that crap and decides to set up his own base where he begins learning how to dodge knives and experiment with poisoning himself. He makes himself a crummy mask out of a much cooler one and goes out in his t-shirt and jeans to fight crime.

After being beaten bloody with baseball bats by some hoods he was interrogating, he makes one of them promise to meet him later and promptly lets him go. River shows up and tells him that Cain has a tarot card tattoo on his arm that indicates he's a member of some super secret bad society of bad guys called "Tarot" -- because what this show needs is more convoluted plot points.

The Cape, or rather, The T-Shirt goes to a bar to get info from the hood he mugged earlier, and is immediately witness to everyone in the bar dropping dead at the same time, because Cain used some new kind of poison that somehow killed everyone at once. Seriously. He must have bought them all a poisoned round and then left. No, wait... even the bartender chokes and dies so it's never properly explained what happened.

River discovers that a city councilman that has been shown in the background the whole episode is the only one standing in the way of Chess's bid to buy out the prison system. She theorizes that Cain is there to kill him, and begins tailing the Councilman.

Keith David gives the cape back to The Cape, and...

You know what? I can't sum this up anymore. If you want to watch it, go to NBC.com and watch it.

It's a real shame, though. The show has fairly high production values but relies waaaaay too much on audiences caring about these underdeveloped characters. If they had put time into it, like stretched the Pilot out to four episodes instead of two and focused on one story arc, there wouldn't be a problem. As it stands though, it seems as if they were just trying to get through a bunch of cameos and then cram him into the costume as fast as possible. Seriously, there's a montage in the first half hour explaining his training.

As pleased as I am to see that the networks are putting superheroes back into costumes, this is not the way to do it. This is barely a step above "Nightman" on the cheese-o-meter, a shame considering that it has a lot of potential. The people who wrote this need to slow down and learn how to tell a story properly. I mean, bank-robbing circus people? BANK-ROBBING CIRCUS PEOPLE!

Just to compare:

Batman: Parents are killed by a mugger, trains to become the worlds greatest detective to prevent it from happening to anyone else.

Spider-Man: Awkward teenager is bitten by a radioactive spider and gains superpowers. Failing to stop his uncle's murderer teaches him that with great power comes great responsibility.

Superman: The last survivor of the doomed planet Krypton, raised by an elderly couple in America's heartland, becomes the symbol of truth, justice, and the American way.

F**k it, it doesn't even have to be a "classic" superhero...

The Black Hood (Impact Comics): A teenage boy inherits a mysterious mask from a dead superhero that compels him to fight evil, even at the cost of his own life.

The Count of Monte Cristo: Framed by his best friend for a crime he didn't commit, befriended by a mysterious old man who reveals a secret, a young man escapes and plots the downfall of those who wronged him in an elaborate revenge scheme.

Now, compare that to:

The Cape: Betrayed by his friends, framed for murder by a privatized police force, found by a circus troupe of bank robbers, he strikes a deal with them to save his own life, steals the identity of his kid's favorite comic book superhero in order to remain in the shadows so that his family won't be the targets of revenge while protecting people from an evil mastermind who has links to a group of shadowy evil masterminds while yadda yadda yadda.

Ugh. So much wasted potential. NBC seriously needs to fix things if they want people to keep watching. I know, why not "Heroes" but with costumes this time? That would make me happy, and all it would take is some yellow and blue spandex.