| Review I loved "Dead Man’s Hand" last season, and was looking forward to Ten’s return to Terry’s life. That said, I expected great things from this episode. I hate to admit it, but I thought this episode was terribly sub-par, especially considering the talent contributing to it. The story is decent. Ten returns to her life of crime, robbing wealthy criminals. Why? She claims that the Jokerz are holding her family, the
Royal Flush Gang, hostage, and are demanding a ransom. With Batman’s aid, they both soon realize that the Jokerz are not involved at all – this was just an elaborate test set up by the Royal Flush Gang to see if
Ten still loved them or not. Sadly, the animation in this episode destroys the story. The movement is awful – characters move too quickly, too slowly, whatever – it was very confusing and tiring. The entire sequence with the Jokerz had TERRIBLE pacing and cutting between scenes – not to mention it was pointless. (It was nice to see all the various Jokerz cliques together, though.) The music was blase…it never really got me pumped. The hard-rock music is a great supplement to fast-moving action scenes, but oftimes when it was used, people were just standing around or moving very slowly. As for the sound effects – usually I don’t comment on this, but the noises made by the guns of the people at the Derby at the beginning of the episode did not sound harmful at all. I dunno…the timing, the sound, the action, the movements, everything seemed off, and it only deterred from an otherwise fine story. I honestly wish I could say I liked this episode more – maybe they can make up for it with the Royal Flush Gang’s next appearance. |
