"Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Mexico" Season Four Review (Spoilers)

[matt_zimmer]

Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Mexico "Chasing Phantoms"

When did Rafaela get competent?

Do you know who she reminds me of? I'm probably dating myself here, but she seems a lot like Charo.

Layla and Echo are right that Ms. Nowhere's smile is creepy, but are they sure that's not just because the CGI animation is Uncanny Valley? That might not be Ms. Nowhere's fault. EVERYBODY'S smiles on this show are creepy.

Frostee's sister turns out not to be useless. Good.

I have to confess, I think this was the strongest season opener so far. It was fast paced, and the characters were "Kid Show Dumb" not "ACTUAL dumb". It was surprisingly good. ****.

Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Mexico "The Convoy"

I like that Echo freed herself, making Tony's dumb plan moot. It wouldn't have worked anyways.

I am really bothered by the fact that none of the guards have guns. If this were consistent with this Universe, I'd live with it, but cops with guns are a VERY real part of the Fast & Furious franchise. And they always were. This show Nerfing that is not cool.

Gary annoys me. You'd figure he'd be on the side of, if not Ms. Nowhere, at least the kids. Frankly, him sitting back and doing nothing while this is all going down makes me outright hate him, and think all of Ms. Nowhere's previous shabby treatment of him was justified after all. It turns out Ms. Nowhere treated Gary like a total punk because he IS a total punk.

Pretty good. ***1/2.

Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Mexico "The Fugitives"

All right, but not great.

Most interesting moment to me was Frostee telling Ms. Nowhere he doesn't think people want them to think as much as she thinks people want them to think. That was both a little deep and also a little tough to wrap my brain around so I liked it.

Eh. **1/2.

Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Mexico "That's A Moray"

Unsatisfactory. Yes, we know this guy Moray framed them, but since we don't know HOW he did it, the group is no closer to clearing their names. I very much hope there is an answer and resolution there, and the show doesn't drop the "whys" in favor of Palindrome gaining a soft spot for Tony.

The one good action sequence was Tony surfing Palindrome out of the exploding building in molee sauce. Which was also simultaneously the dumbest thing the show has ever done.

The entire episode was infested with plot-related stupidity. Frostee's prank on Ms. Nowhere wasn't remotely funny because they are spies on the run from the law and shouldn't be drawing unwanted attention to themselves. I can't take these specific stakes seriously if the show refuses to.

Not happy about this episode. **.

Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Mexico "The Ocelot King Vs. El Mariposa"

So that was a reasonably satisfying explanation of where things stand with Tuco. I frankly am worried that we still aren't exploring HOW the frame happened. That could still happen in the next three episodes, but that mystery should BE a mystery all throughout the episodes, and it hasn't been brought up since Episode 2.

The moment I knew Tuco was an innocent dupe is when he's excited he's finally in a conspiracy. It ties nicely into what a dope his nephew is, but it's something only an innocent doof would say in that moment. If he was guilty, he'd say something smarter.

I thought giving Frostee and Layla a bonding scene was a great idea. Unfortunately the dialogue on the show is still atrocious, so it's not entirely what I needed it to be. But it was all right by this show's standards. And I need to start judging all of the underwhelming stuff by that specific standard, if I'm ever going to either fairly review it, or more importantly, enjoy it.

Solid episode after a couple of underwhelming episodes. ***1/2.

Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Mexico "The Siege"

A lot of that was shaky.

First off, this is a small thing, all things considered, but it drives me nuts. I don't mind Mexican civilians speaking in English to the team. That is sort of taken for granted in these types of TV shows that everyone in the given foreign country is bilingual, and English is coincidentally one of the languages everyone ours heroes encounters has picked up. I understand the logic there, as faulty as it is. But this show has Mexican civilians speaking English to each other. And on their news broadcasts. The thing is, if you use the "All foreigners are bilingual" trope, you need to be careful with it. I understand subtitles are a tough ask on a kids show (although both Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League managed them) but this show stepped far outside of what that trope should ever allow, and not for the first time.

I didn't like the Roscoe cartoon. I'm pretty sure I would have appreciated it earlier in the show's run. But now with so much stuff going on, it's neither here nor there.

I was all set to compliment the show for Frostee telling Cisco that this mess is HIS fault. Tuco is not a professional spy and can not possibly be expected to recognize when he's being played, or what information he should never give out. Cisco on the other hand was telling him stuff he had no business telling him. And I was all set to compliment the show about that, and then the writers had Frostee actually APOLOGIZE to Cisco at the end, and say he admires his honesty. And I can slam the show for doing that, but the truth is adult oriented shows pull that move too. It's standard Arrowverse fare for a hero to say a brutally honest and truthful thing to an obnoxious hero that we've been waiting for them to tell them off for all season, and then at the end of the episode they walk back that righteous speech and apologize. It's not just the problem with this show. Most television, kiddie and adult, believes everybody in life is owed an apology. What kills me is that when Frostee was pointing this out, he was being logical. There was no anger in his voice, much less rudeness. It was unfiltered honesty. And instead, at the end, he praises Cisco for the quality he, Frostee, showed to apologize for telling him a thing he needed to understand. There is something psychologically wrong with writers in popular culture. They can't ever let a true lesson stand. Even if Frostee is not being rude or judgmental when telling Cisco this, he is forced to apologize for telling him this true thing at all. That bothers me. ALL television bothers me with their "Everybody gets an apology trophies". That is not a sport everyone wins in real life, and not everybody is entitled to the person who said the true thing to walk it back. I talk about Gilda and Bernadette in my comic, and they DO often apologize for their poor behavior. What I never make them do, and what I would be crazy to make them do is to apologize for being right. It's weird that pop-culture has infantilized its viewers in bothsiderism regarding etiquette, and acting like people speaking up against mistreatment are as equally to blame for the situation as the person doing the wrong thing. It's not just this show. It's every show. And it's wrong. And honestly, guys? We need to start calling producers on it. We tend to lose our crap over sloppy continuity or plot mistakes. I think it's about time we started telling producers we want our heroes to be better, well, PEOPLE. And the first step is allowing a true rant to stand against a person who deserves it. And I vow to bring this complaint up in every future thing I review where it happens. It's not acceptable, and we need to start treating it as such.

The rape jokes on Family Guy didn't go away overnight. But the attitudes of pop-culture viewers shifted enough to make them unacceptable in time. Let's make bothsidesing somebody calling out a jerk on their crap the next thing to complain about. Bothsiderism is currently getting the traditional media slammed regarding political articles and punditry. Maybe we need to extend that outrage to fiction too. Let me help. That sucked.

I didn't hate the episode, and was planning to give it a solid three stars at the beginning of the review, but after I read my review, I talked myself out of that. That happens sometimes. **.

Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Mexico "Into The Labyrinth"

Dire (and exciting) ending. This season has largely stepped away from the car races and chases. This episode helped that a little.

I liked the slow-motion scene of Gary setting his paperwork record set to classical music. To be blunt, it's not a perfect scene. A bigger budget would have made that scene impeccable. But I loved it for the reason that it knew the right thing to focus on: The Paperwork. The huge fight scene going on in the background is secondary. The paperwork is the thing to be considered Gary's Crowning Moment Of Awesome. Also we learn that it appears Gary has no last name. That's dumb, but no dumber than most of the other stuff on this show.

Nowhere NEAR as great as last year's penultimate episode, but the truth is I liked it. And I haven't liked much this season. Call that a win.****.

Fast & Furious: Spy Racers: Mexico "Don't Go Chasing Lavafalls"

I'm disappointed. I didn't like the first two seasons either. But I DID like the third. This felt like a backslide in quality.

The two biggest notes I have have to do with the biggest mistake of the season and the biggest mistake of the episode.

The biggest mistake of the season is never finding out how Moray doctored the video to frame the Spy Racers. What's especially problematic about this is that it stopped being a mystery by ignoring that, and was just pure nonsense instead. Without that specific information and resolution, I think the entire arc of the season was unfulfilling and underwhelming. It was a story mistake that didn't need to happen, and wouldn't have happened on a better show. I've seen even marginally better shows pull that off (Scooby Doo springs immediately to mind).

The biggest mistake of the episode was Layla pushing the guy into the lava. The timing was ALL wrong. See, the audience needed to see that the robot suits were lava-proof for the end, and they used that moment to show us that. But at the time Layla had no way of knowing that. For all she knew, she was deliberately murdering the guy. What's frustrating is that the episode could have justified her doing something like that if they had timed it better. She flew into a seemingly lethal rage in the beginning at the idea that Tony was killed (oh, excuse me, "gone"). The proper and excusable time for her to push the guy into lava is before learning Tony was actually alive. Not after. What could have been considered a great example of her losing control of her emotions and her morality is turned into "Layla just tried to kill a guy and none of the other heroes remotely care." Timing works wonders in good storytelling. It's why bad storytelling has too little of it. Like here, for example.

The lava effects were pretty good.

I like the kiss between Ms. Nowhere and Palindrome. We earned that. And I like that they bought back a potential kiss between Tony and Layla. If you ask me, we haven't earned that yet. Especially after Layla threw a guy into lava for no reason.

I like when Palindrome says he's surprised Ms. Nowhere came back for him after everything, she says her greatest fear was dying in the presence of Gary and Julius, and she wouldn't wish that on her worst enemy. See, even in a moment of character growth Ms. Nowhere can't help but being horrible.

It's not terrible by any means. But it's a disappointment, and a step down from last season. ***.