Attack of the Beetle
First Aired: October 14th, 2012
Synopsis: Spider-Man bursts into a high-class restaurant, where Aunt May is sitting by herself. The Beetle breaks in after a moment and fires a small missile at her. Spider-Man flashes back to how this all started - at the end of school that day, Coulson had to have a parent-teacher interview with Aunt May. It went so well that she invited Coulson to dinner that evening. Peter overheard and decided that he had to ruin the date, so surreptitiously went around as Spider-Man and tried to ruin the date. Eventually Coulson talked to him, but at that point Beetle burst in, bringing us to the start of the episode. Coulson is able to save Aunt May and the restaurant is evacuated. Coulson and Spider-Man work together to fight the Beetle, and Coulson reveals that Beetle's there for him - they've fought in the past, and he's the only agent to ever defeat the Beetle. Beetle's suit is damaged by Coulson, but the Beetle manages to escape outside the restaurant and take Aunt May as a hostage before flying away.
When Beetle takes the chance to stop and fix the damage to his armour that Coulson inflicted, Aunt May takes the opportunity to run away, her hands still bound. Spider-Man and Coulson arrive, and after Coulson gets Aunt May away, the two of them work to keep fighting the Beetle. To Spider-Man's surprise, Coulson proves to be quite skilled and Spider-Man admits that Coulson is pretty cool. The Beetle resorts to locking all of his weaponry onto the two heroes, but Aunt May has somehow managed to get into a nearby parked jet, and she's able to turn on its exhaust, which defeats the Beetle. The SHIELD Helicarrier arrives to deal with Beetle, and Coulson takes Aunt May home. Peter beats them home and overhears them as they come home - Aunt May admits to Coulson that she had fun, but doesn't want to continue seeing him since she knows it would make Peter feel awkward. Peter tells Aunt May that it's okay for her to see someone and he wants her to be happy, and she rushes back out to head off with Coulson. Peter decides to follow them as Spider-Man, just to be safe.
Review: This is mostly an action episode with a pretty simple plot, but I think that it's that simplicity that manages to make it work. We don't have to deal with Nova or the rest of Spider-Man's team, we don't have to sit around and explain things for ages, and the minimalist cast gives a bit more room for them all to breathe. Like with his last appearance, Beetle manages to be very competent and very entertaining as a result, and once again he's barely talking which only adds to his menace.
The big flaw of the plot, as it feels like is the case in most episodes, is that Peter Parker is kind of a ninny. He has a knee-jerk reaction to Coulson getting on with Aunt May and spends the entire episode complaining about it. There's no reason for him to be so vehemently opposed to it - Coulson isn't a jerk, nor is he someone that Peter can't trust. He just hates Coulson and the idea of Coulson seeing Aunt May because...well, just because. When he comes to the realisation that Coulson is actually a pretty good guy, and that it's a good thing that he makes Aunt May happy, it's less of a profound revelation and more of a "ya think?" moment.
If this were a better show I'd be keen to see how Aunt May's relationship with Coulson is going to change things going forwards, how it will develop the show and what we might learn about Coulson, but let's be real - nothing new's going to be happening here. This entire episode is basically just a flashy fight scene, and while it's better than most episodes of the show, it's still nothing outstanding. If I felt like this episode was going to have any consequences I'd be a lot more excited, but my patience with Ultimate Spider-Man is swiftly growing thin.
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