It has to be said, you really know when a show has managed to nail it when the slower, more transitional episodes manage to engage and grip as much as the big ones. When it comes to gripping, Episode 7 clung with all the steely power of Spidey’s sticky didgets fixed to a wall as our plucky hero got his spider-ass well and truly handed to him by a crazed Scorpion, but while the fact that young Peter Parker got beaten and stabbed by a gigantic metal tail shouldn’t be ignored, the real breaking news is that the seemingly benevolent facade of Norman Osborn is ever so slightly starting to slip.
As our hero (and the episode) takes some down time to heal from his ordeal, we’re starting to see just how controlling Pete’s benefactor really is as it proceeds to take its first, dark steps in showing us what the opposite of the relationships with Uncle Ben or Tony Stark can look like. Norman may not be ranting like a maniac or wearing a Goblin costume, but his natural outlook on life pre-Goblin serum may prove to be justvas damaging to an impressionable young man as a pumpkin bomb…
In the aftermath of having the literal spider-crap kicked out of him, Peter wakes up battered and bruised in the medical wing of Oscorp, but nevertheless healing fast from the injuries delivered to him free of charge by the Scorpion. Norman Osborn rightfully feels responsible as it was he who broke contact during a vital part of the fight to focus more on his real mission: to finally locate the illegal tech operation of his former colleague Otto Octavius and shut it down. However, while Norman feels bad for his negligence, his advice to Peter proves to be rather alarming as he maintains that to be the best superhero he can be, Peter has to stop holding back, stop pulling his punches and do what is necessary to get the job done no matter what.
Mulls over the concept of “with great power comes great respect”, armed forces led by Thaddeus Ross and backed up by Iron Man manage to arrest Otto and cart him off to jail, however, nature abhors a vacuum and after word of Octavius’ capture spreads, his armoury of lethal inventions is now up for grabs.
Needing a power boost more than most is the 110th Street Gang who also suffered heavy losses during the Scorpion’s attack, but after paying for a tip off from Dmitri Smerdyakov (an ex customer of Otto’s) they may finally have the means to fight back against their foes, meaning that Lonnie Lincoln sinks even further into the world of gang crime. However, while all this is going on, Peter mulls over Norman’s harsh advice, genuinely believing that his time swinging above the streets of New York is coming to an end. However, thanks to a pep talk from Harry, Peter finds that his new friend has been showing the boffins at Oscorp some of his original Spider-Man designs and before you can say “comeback”, the legend begins anew.
When you consider how many Spider-Man related projects that have been released over the past 10 years alone, be it comics, movies, animated series or video games, the fact that this show can get us absurdly pumped for the reveal of a costume the character’s literally been wearing since the 60s is nothing short of magical. I personally have seen that costume at least once a day for around twenty years and the final shot that shows one of popular culture’s most famous masks reflected in Parkers big ass glasses still managed to draw an impassioned “fuck yeah” out of me like I hadn’t seen it in years. It’s all in the writing, of course and after his near-fatal beating at the hands of the Scorpion, it was wisely yet another time where it was prudent to ease off the superheroics again for a moment and take some emotional stock before the final two episodes drop next week.
However, while Pete’s struggles are more internal this episode, that doesn’t mean that the series pulls back from all of the super person shenanigans. For a start, Otto Octavius gets that one step closer to becoming Doctor Octopus when the authorities try to shut down his operation to discover that his security system is made up of some familiar looking robotic tentacles lurking in his ceiling. While the ensuing sequence slightly resembles the scene from Spider-Man 2 where the appendages famously wipe out hospital staff, it’s once again yet another example of the practically perfect foreshadowing that the writers employ that gets you constantly salivating for the next episode. We even get a thoroughly gratuitous Iron Man cameo to make up for the lack of spider-action and once again it succeeds in creating that expansive world that Marvel makes their business.
However, while there’s continuing threads concerning more of Spider-Man’s rogues gallery edging ever closer to their final, villainous, forms (Chameleon and Tombstone, I see you), the real big story here is watching Colman Domingo’s Norman noticable shift from kindly mentor to ruthless, manipulating businessman as he starts pressuring Peter to alter his values in order to continue their relationship. We’ve been getting to this moment since Osborn showed up in Parker’s apartment instead of Tony Stark and while being the negative image of Peter’s experiences in the MCU has always been the show’s major plot thread, to see it finally break cover is quite something to see. It seems that Norman is quite adept at gaslighting as a form of control – after all, see how he callously excludes Harry from the important stuff while making it seem innocent, sending him from the room like an obedient dog. In the event of Spider-Man’s defeat, which he’s partially responsible for after allowing himself to be distracted by the hunt for Octavius, Norman not only barely takes responsibility, but instead leans on Peter, choosing to emotionally blackmail the teen into unleashing his powers more, vaguely hinting that he may have to serious hurt or kill his foes to remain under his tutelage.
The fact that Peter is finding his very belief system being targeted by a man he trusts to protect him is incredibly powerful and Norman even has the audacity to bastardize the legendary Parker mantra by tellingly swapping out the “responsibility” part for the far more worrying “respect”. It’s an angle we’ve never really seen before as we are seeing a completely opposite scenario we’re used to with the traditional comics storyline (Uncle Ben) or even the MCU (Tony Stark) and watching everything that our young lead believes in is being subverted by such subtle means is, in its own way, just as damaging and dramatic way to put Parker in peril than stabbing him in the back with a large robot scorpion tail. While other villains have targeted Spider-Man’s body, Norman has targeted his soul and the fact that the businessman isn’t even a costumed supervillain makes all the more insidious.
Still, we got Harry having Pete’s back and we got the classic costume getting rolled out asap so hopefully this mean Parker will soon put his red and blue foot down. After all, power is great and respect is cool – but responsibility has always been the fuel that makes Spidey swing.
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