Kyle’s Review

After last week’s introduction of a riot torn city, this week’s pull back of Powers went in reverse. That saddens me because the best thing going for Powers the previous week was the stinger at the end of the episode of humans rising against powers and the death of a power. Powers downplayed the riot and reduced the dead power to a police procedural and while I’m sure there’ll be some lasting issues, most of the tension was as dead as the alley’s corpse. Still, there was plenty to like in “Aha Shake Heartbreak.”

There might be a larger outcry against people in tights after this week’s episode. Krispin takes his “Kaotic Chic” message to the public and it causes some problems when a washed up power, named RedHawk, mock attacks Zora. I won’t spoil it here but let’s just say that if Krispin wasn’t messed in the head before, he is now.

Calista’s back in commission—for a while—until she gets caught by the Powers Division. She wanted to be treated like a power and now she’s gotten her wish. I’m tired of Calista but she hits a nerve with Johnny Royalle and when Johnny finds out she’s in lock up, it’ll strain his relationship with Walker.

Johnny Royalle wishes to end Wolfe’s life and this week, he explained why he’d want to do so. The little bits of Wolfe he’s been given people allow Wolfe to sap their powers from anywhere in the world. I wonder why Powers didn’t explore this angle a few weeks ago, when Wolfe was on the loose. Oh well, Wolfe’s potential feeding frenzy can’t be a good thing but it took Walker most of the episode to realize that. Anyway, the boys join forces again and we saw ample flashbacks of their glory days.

The rest of the episode tied the scattered arcs together but left them messy enough to provide wiggle room for another couple of episodes. As the last major power, Retro Girl represents the larger power community and she doesn’t want her abilities. That should turn up the pressure cooker on the struggle between normal humans and powers. But this episode wasn’t all good.

They dropped the Simons arc. That thread questioned if draining powers of their abilities hurt them and I have a sneaky suspicion that we haven’t seen the last of it. Simons was another bright spot last week and I missed him here. And I don’t usually harp on special effects but these are really bad when compared with the other superhero shows out there. These effects wouldn’t stick out as much as they do if Powers didn’t give them center stage. Do they actually think these effects work? They’re hokey at best.

Overall, I liked this episode but I see it as a bridge between two major events and might be reading too much into it. Last week’s episode fired up Krispin’s mob and then we don’t see them at all this week but I have hope that they’ll return next week after the events of “Aha Shake Heartbreak.”

Verdict:

Initially disappointing, Powers’ “Aha Shake Heartbreak” presented enough goods to get me interested for the season finale.