Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Twenty-Six: Rise of the Goblin

 Rise of the Goblin

First Aired: October 28th, 2012

Synopsis: The Green Goblin attacks Harry Osborn on his way to school, and in spite of Spider-Man's protests that he wants to fight him alone, his teammates jump in and fight him. Harry soon discovers that the Goblin is his father and is annoyed at the superheroes when they hurt him. For Harry's safety they take him to the SHIELD Helicarrier as SHIELD agents come into the school to deal with the Goblin. Shortly after the heroes arrive on the helicarrier, the Goblin comes bursting in on a SHIELD plane he's somehow hijacked, and when Nick Fury says that they can work out a cure, the Goblin laughs, saying that he's finally strong. Harry tries talking his father down, but Norman mentions that the serum he took has Spider-Man's DNA in it, which through a logic process only he understands, leads Harry to determine that Spider-Man must be responsible for Norman's transformation. Spider-Man in turn isn't able to explain what really happened. 

 

After being trapped behind force fields, the Green Goblin breaks through the helicarrier and into Connors' lab, where he steals a glider. Spider-Man beats him up but the Goblin escapes to the outside of the helicarrier, and manages to destroy the engines. The helicarrier lands in the river and in the chaos Spider-Man is separated from his teammates and left alone with just the Goblin and Harry. Harry tries convincing the Goblin to get a cure, but the Goblin electrocutes Harry, which triggers a transformation into Venom. Spider-Man fights the two of them but convinces Harry that Norman's a monster now, which drives Harry to electrocute himself to remove the symbiote. The Green Goblin takes a sample of the symbiote then leaves for some reason, flying away on his glider. Everyone manages to get off the helicarrier, which is about to explode, but in the aftermath Harry says that he blames Spider-Man for everything, and vows revenge. Spider-Man's teammates reveal that they lived on the helicarrier and since it's been destroyed, Peter convinces Aunt May to let them live at theirs.

 

Subplots:

• Connors' arm gets crushed by machinery during the helicarrier attack. I think we can all see where this is leading.

Review: I'm all for ending the first season with a big action sequence and a shaking up of the status quo, two perfectly good ideas that work fine on paper. But the big issue is...well, everything? Why is the Green Goblin going after Harry? It's never explained, and from his brief team-up with Venom it looks like it's possibly because he wants to make Harry more powerful, but there could be any number of reasons. Maybe he wanted to kill Harry but decided to manipulate him while he could; it makes as much sense. Why is the Green Goblin suddenly smarter, and no longer talking like the Hulk? All the explanation we get is that he's "evolved", which is writer code for "we don't know but we wanted it this way."

Harry's a complete clod in this episode, which is a pity because he'd actually been pretty likable for most of the season. He yells at the team for fighting his father, who is pretty obviously a giant monster trying to kill them all. He decides that Spider-Man must be responsible for his father's transformation because it's mentioned Spidey's DNA was in the serum that transformed him, with nothing to prove this other than his father's word. He decides to work with his father, and then after realising it's a bad idea and getting rid of the symbiote - not to mention watching his father take a sample of it and say that Harry's not good enough for the symbiote - decides that somehow Spider-Man is the bad guy and that everything is his fault. I get that conflict between characters drives stories, but everything he does here is completely nonsensical.

What else have we got in the list of bad ideas that make up what I hesitantly call this plot? We've got Spider-Man getting angry at his team for fighting the Goblin since apparently only he has that privilege. We've then got him declaring that he'll work with his team not five minutes later, meaning the entire plot point was pointless. We've got this absolutely inane bit where a SHIELD agent declares that the Goblin is down, only for the Goblin to burst in on his SHIELD plane and reveal that he was impersonating the agent's voice. We've got the Goblin leaving the helicarrier for no other reason than "our dance is far from over, Spider-Man - another day!", along with Spider-Man conveniently running out of web fluid at exactly that moment. There's just so much bad stuff here.

I mentioned in my Before Watching post that back in the day I was watching this series as it came out but stopped after the first season finale. Watching this, I remember why, and absolutely feel justified in having done so - after an entire season where the best episodes are still middling quality, it's hard to feel that it's going to improve if this is their attempt at drama and a big climax. Having the benefit of being in the future, I can see that the next few episodes look to have some classic Spidey villains in them, and I genuinely do like the setup of Spidey's team living with him now, but even with those positives, I'd drop this show again in a heartbeat if I wasn't committed to doing these blog posts about it. Ultimate Spider-Man's never been great, but this episode really is the final nail in the coffin.