Spectacular Spider-Man Episode Twenty-Five: Opening Night

Opening Night

First Aired: November 18th, 2009

Synopsis: Norman Osborn is showing off the Vault - a high-security prison - to J. Jonah Jameson, where Spider-Man is being led into a cell. As a favour to Norman, Spider-Man's agreed to be locked up and to try to escape so as to test its security, but unbeknownst to either of them, Black Cat is breaking into the prison at the same time for unknown reasons. Short after Spider-Man's locked up, Norman Osborn has to leave due to a phone call. Elsewhere, the school's play is doing its opening night, and there's no sign of Harry Osborn, whose role as Puck gets filled in by Hobie Brown. Spider-Man manages to escape from the cell he's in when guards show up, hiding behind webbing and jumping out when they open the door. The prison starts to enter lockdown but outside it the Green Goblin shows up and remotely controls the prison, keeping guards away from Spider-Man. When Spider-Man passes by cells full of some former foes of his, the Goblin opens them up, and Spider-Man has to fight them. While he's doing so, Black Cat breaks into the cell of a prisoner who turns out to be her father, who she's planning on breaking out. Seeing Spider-Man in trouble, she opts to assist him.

Spider-Man and Black Cat end up hiding in her father's cell for a breather from the villains, with Spider-Man covering the door in webbing. The Green Goblin frees Rhino and Molten Man from their cells, but in the time the villains take to break through Spider-Man's webbing he, Black Cat, and her father have escaped into the air ducts via her entry route. Black Cat's father Walter is, surprisingly enough, the burglar who killed Uncle Ben, and Spider-Man swears to Black Cat that he won't let her take Walter out of prison. Black Cat leads Spider-Man and her father to a room full of knockout gas canisters, which can't be spread throughout the prison thanks to the Goblin's takeover, but if the villains can be lured there, they can be opened. Spider-Man manages to lure the villains there, and Walter stays behind to open up the canisters, saying that in spite of his daughter's wishes, he's going to stay in prison, as he genuinely does regret killing Ben Parker. Once Spider-Man's outside the prison, he's attacked by the Green Goblin, who ends up flying away. Black Cat tells Spider-Man that she won't forgive him for stopping her from getting her father out. Back at school, the play is a success.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• I haven't really had the room to mention it in my synopses, but there's been a running gag throughout the show that whenever Hobie Brown is about to talk, someone else will interrupt him. Here, he finally gets to talk ins his role as Puck, and it's a good payoff to the gag.

Review: I remember really liking this episode the first time I saw it, and while it's far from a bad episode, it's about the middle of the road this time around. The school play subplot has been running for a while, so seeing the actual play be performed is cool, but it feels a little...unnecessary? There's scenes where the narration of the play reflects what's happening to Spider-Man, and Glory Grant's Cobweb and Hobie Brown's Puck having similar costumes to Spider-Man and the Green Goblin is cute, but it feels like it's just sort of...there. I don't know, maybe if I'd seen A Midsummer Night's Dream I'd appreciate it more.

There's a few other plot points that feel like they should have been thought through a bit more. Walter Hardy being the Burglar in this continuity is a genius idea, and him genuinely regretting the murder is a great idea since he was just a cat burglar before, but the show keeps his face in shadow before the reveal. Presumably it's so that we don't go, "Gasp, Black Cat's father is the Burglar," before we're supposed to, but who remembers what the Burglar looks like in this universe off the top of their head? The handwave that Spider-Man's testing out the prison as a favour to Norman is a bit flimsy too - how did Norman contact Spider-Man? Why did he agree to do so on the night of the opening play that his girlfriend is acting in?

In spite of those complaints though, there's some good stuff here. Seeing the Enforcers without powers is fun, and the "Mysterio" that fights Spider-Man being a robot both increases the threat and is in-character. I think that if the play was integrated into the plot a bit better we'd probably have something pretty great here, but even with some of the missteps mentioned it's still a pretty alright episode.