Marvel's Spider-Man Episode Forty-Six: The Cellar

The Cellar

First Aired: October 27th, 2019

Synopsis: Anna Maria is visiting Doctor Octopus in hospital when she sees a news report about Spider-Man fighting Regent. Doctor Octopus wakes up from his coma and says that Spider-Man needs help. Spider-Man himself is in a pocket dimension opened by Regent, and uses his ion displacer powered by Iron Man's armour to open a portal back. He tries bringing the Avengers with him, but the portal closes before he can do so. When he goes to see Captain Watanabe she agrees that something fishy is going on with the villains of the Cellar, so takes Spider-Man there. Spider-Man looks through the files there and finds plans for Regent's armour, with Augustus Roman's assistant appearing to be responsible. While she's taken away Spider-Man goes to question some of the prisoners, and he hears from Cloak that his powers are being drained. Spider-Man works out that Roman is draining them to power the Regent suit, which is his. Roman activates it and fights Spider-Man.

Spider-Man discovers that Regent's plan was to defeat the Avengers as revenge for his father getting stopped by them. As they keep fighting Cloak's cell is damaged, freeing him, before Regent sends drones after Spider-Man. The drones are hacked by Doctor Octopus, who opens Dagger's cell then tells Spider-Man where the processor powering Regent's suit can be found. Spider-Man, Cloak, and Dagger reach it, attacked by Regent all the way. They're unable to destroy the processor as it's surrounded by a force field, but Spider-Man works out that the Avengers are trapped in Cloak's pocket dimension. Dagger drains herself to power up Cloak so that he can free them, then they attack Regent and help destroy the processor. In the aftermath of the fight, Spider-Man explains to Ms. Marvel that his mind was taken over by a villain recently and she understands. Captain America praises Cloak and Dagger as heroes and Augustus Roman is jailed, then Peter goes to visit Doctor Octopus. He thanks him for the help during the fight awkwardly, and Ock thanks him in turn for bringing his mind back to his body, equally awkwardly.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Spider-Man comments on some of Regent's powers and is unsure where they could have come from, Watanabe suggests Frostbite, Whirlwind, and Paradox, none of whom have appeared in any episodes of this show, nor the contemporary Avengers one, before.

Review: Well, this episode's a bust. Aside from the brief first act, with Spider-Man escaping from the pocket dimension and then seeing Watanabe, practically the entire thing is Spider-Man and his allies fighting Regent. Predictably, it's boring. For someone who supposedly has all of the powers of the villains he's captured, Regent's shockingly underpowered, and there's no explanation for why he doesn't just use, say, Spot's powers to teleport Spider-Man somewhere else. His motivations are also revealed to be to defeat the Avengers, meaning that he's spent years building his prison and armour, all for that. A bit of an overreaction, isn't it?

Cloak and Dagger are enjoyable, as always, and having the Avengers come out of Cloak to beat up Regent is very satisfying. I'll admit that I'm intrigued by Doctor Octopus helping Spider-Man - will he be an ally for the future, or will the writers find ways to make him and Spider-Man continue to clash, in spite of them understanding one another like never before? Besides those brief highlights, though, there's not a lot to enjoy here.

Honestly, what more can I say than that? There's a brief moment when Roman's assistant is framed for being Regent which makes it look like the show is going off in its own direction, but it predictably turns out to be a red herring, and Regent remains as boring as ever. Nothing really exciting happens in the episode because it doesn't feel like the episode has room to be exciting - the only threat is Regent, and we know that he won't kill any of the heroes or keep the Avengers trapped forever, and there's no real exciting way to defeat him. Watch this episode at your own risk, readers.