A day late.  Spoilers beneath the fold, in case you fear them.  And I’m afraid that part of this week’s reaction will make me sound like a sexist pig from hell.

There are times when this show, cheesy and fun though it may be, is just a bit too predictable.  From the moment we saw the woman approach Defuser with news of her missing child, we knew it was just part of the challenge, and what the contestants had to do.  And from the moment Basura wavered when presented with the missing child dilemma, we knew she was going to be eliminated, no matter how evil an edit Defuser got.  Basura’s cleavage will be missed; and I honestly can’t think of another time when a contestant turned in her uniform, was returned to her civvies, and I went, "AHH!"  Usually, I think, the contestants put on a wig as part of their superhero persona, but I’m positive Basura’s civilian hair was a wig.  Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against people who shop in the granny section of the local SPCA thrift shop; it just took me by surprise, since I was so used to seeing looking more stylish.  Or something.

I think Parthenon really came into his own this week.  He accomplished the mission, he did it quickly, and he paid the appropriate amount of attention to the diversionary challenge.  Stan called him out on saying something like, "Bad guys broke into our lair last night", but he wasn’t threatened with elimination.  In terms of character and integrity, I think Parthenon is shaping up like Feedback did last year.  I was actually pretty appalled, though, at the so-called "reward" that Stan gave him for completing the mission.  Actually, I was kind of appalled that the contestants aren’t allowed any contact with their family during the run of the show.  And to force Parthenon to choose who else besides him got to make a call home just struck me as horribly unfair.

I though Stan’s reasoning for pulling Defuser and Hygena forward to the elimination blocks were pretty flimsy this week, especially since Basura’s elimination was a foregone conclusion.  Defuser does indeed act like a bully from time to time, but, to me, he acts like a cop taking charge of a situation.  In a crime scene, you can’t afford to have anything changed in the slightest, and I think he knew that; and the other contestants, of course, have no police experience.  But his calling out Hygena really bugged me; he said that he was concerned that she was letting her own obsession with tidiness and her phobias get in the way of becoming a superhero; as if none of Stan Lee’s characters had ever suffered from any flaws (Spiderman’s adolescent angst, anyone?).  If anything, it would have made Hygena a more interesting character when she becomes a superhero character.

I’m getting really tired of the drama surrounding Whipsnap.  She’s overly emotional.  There’s nothing wrong with emotion, of course, but it seems like she’s taken Feedback’s "You were always the father I never had" approach to extremes.  She gave up her chance to call her friends or family when offered, and while noble, it wasn’t all that surprising.

And was anyone else kind of bugged by the mock up covers that Stan had done for the characters this week?  Yes, Parthenon’s, Hyperstrike’s, and Defuser’s were all quite flattering, but each of the women characters were given the typical comic-book cleavage and tiny waistline that characterize superheroines, no matter who the publisher.  I can understand that a superhero whose focus is on cleaning up with Lysol and a feather duster might be a hard enough sell to the adolescent male demographic without cleavage, but still.  It just annoyed me.

Anyway, at this point, my favorites are Parthenon and Hygena.  It’s hard to say who’s going to make it to the last round, though; at this time last year, I had no idea that Fat Momma would be coming up against Feedback, though I was pretty sure Major Victory wasn’t going to make it.

Although I suppose I must admit that my own life won’t be particularly impacted no matter who wins.  I have yet to hunt down Feedback’s comic and his movie.  Heck, I have no idea if either of them are yet in production.