Marvel's Spider-Man Episode Two: Horizon High, Part Two

Horizon High, Part Two

First Aired: August 19th, 2017

Synopsis: Spider-Man's fighting Scorpion, trying to stop him from stealing a gem from a museum, and thinks back to how he had been spending some time with Harry before school. Harry asked Peter to get some things from his lab at Horizon, before Peter saw a news report about Scorpion and went to stop him as Spider-Man. Spider-Man leads Scorpion to the subway, hoping that the confined space will give him an advantage, and Scorpion starts escaping on a train. Spider-Man manages to get on it after him and stop him. As Peter, he shows up late to school, which annoys his student counsellor, Otto Octavius. Octavius gives Peter Harry's old lab, and Peter clears it out. He's then invited to meet with another student, Gwen Stacy, but she turns out to be off getting samples for experiments. Peter then has time to himself to work out a personal project to work on, and after struggling with ideas decides to upgrade his Spider-Man suit. While he's working on it, a robot breaks into the school, going after Harry's old equipment, and Spider-Man tries stopping it, but has to let it escape to save Miles Morales.

When Peter gets home he overhears Aunt May on the phone saying that money is tight, and he realises that Horizon is too expensive. The next day he gives Harry one of his experiments back before school. During the fight with the robot it had appeared to be an explosive, so Peter asks about it, but Harry says that he has to keep his secrets to himself. At school, Peter applies for a cleaning position to try and make money, and after explaining his situation to Max Modell, Max offers him a position as his lab assistant since that'll pay some money. Shortly afterwards, Max, Anya, and Peter head to Midtown to investigate Harry's situation, only for the robot to attack again. Peter changes to Spider-Man and manages to stop it by taking the explosive he gave Harry and using it to destroy the robot, but Harry thinks that Spider-Man was trying to injure him. Afterwards, Spencer Smythe is revealed to have been controlling the robot, which he refers to as a Slayer. At home that evening Peter lies to Aunt May and says that he's gotten a scholarship which will help with the costs, and as he takes out the rubbish, thinks to himself about all of the new opportunities that are coming up for him.

Subplots:

• Harry mentions that since he's been suspended from Horizon, his father is creating a school where he can attend.
• Spencer Smythe says that the Slayer and the Vulture were "all part of his master plan", implying that he's working for someone else.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• The explosive that Harry's working on is clearly a prototype pumpkin bomb, which is a neat little bit of (probable) foreshadowing and setup.

Review: Another good episode for the show. While I wouldn't call the fight with the Spider-Slayer the most exciting thing in the world, I do like the logical way that Spider-Man defeats it (namely, with a bomb), and the consequences of this - namely, Harry is suspicious of Spider-Man now. He had a few qualms last episode already; adding this to the mix does give him a justifiable dislike, even if we know that he's wrong. Anya assisting Spider-Man during the fight with some sort of science gun is also a neat bit, showing that she's ready for action when needed.

Probably the biggest issue with the episode is that it struggles to stick to one plot. While it's possible that the stuff with Scorpion is setting something up (if nothing else it's introduced the villain now), it feels largely irrelevant here. Peter struggling to find something to work on is given a lot of focus before we suddenly switch to money problems as the new issue to solve, and it feels like the latter is something that could have been focused on from the start. I'm also not sure how I feel about Norman Osborn setting up his own school - between that, Midtown High, and Horizon, do we really need three schools? Why is Harry jumping between the three of them, when as a suspended student, he should just be chilling at home while he's investigated? Oh, and on another school-related note, if Horizon's teaching method is literally just "Here's a lab, work on whatever you want," that's kind of terrible for a school.

Overall though, I did enjoy this episode. We've got a good cast of characters and some good subplots brewing here, and I'm keen to see what happens next. Spider-Man upgrading to his classic costume is much appreciated, and it feels like we've mostly finished setting up the status quo. I'm keen to see where it goes next from here.