The Cape - ''Goggles & Hicks''

Spoiler Level: High

First off, it's nice to finally have a title that's not just one word.

Secondly, Goggles & Hicks are very cool villains.  Goggles is the eccentric genius who hunts the victim down, Hicks is the gunman who takes them out.  Goggles is verbose, Hicks is silent.  Goggles enjoys his work and is a kid at heart, Hicks is serious and down-to-business.  And the opening scenes set them up as master assassins.

Too good, actually.  After building them up, it's too unbelievable that they can't take out The Cape given the circumstances they're in.  They're foiled by things like trees, interference from tunnels, and plain old missed shots.  Which would have worked fine if we hadn't already seen them shoot through brick walls from a ridiculously long distance to take out a man hiding in Afghanistan.  Their surprise at their initial failure due to The Cape's cape being bullet-proof is understandable, but after that they should have brought their "A" Game, or been foiled by things that were much more unpredictable.  Really, if you guys are that good, tunnels and trees should not be what stops you.

But as usual, what makes the episode work is the characters.  It's nice to see Trip making a new friend, and being able to do it because in his heart he believes his dad was a good cop.  The cracks in Hoyt's armor are staring to show, and Dana's starting to see him for who he really is.  Each episode she gets closer and closer to the truth.

Sadly, I'm starting to lose hope of getting a pay-off from the series.  According to this report at TV by the Numbers, the ratings have been dropping, and NBC has cut the season down from 13 episodes to 10.  And of course, they just wrapped on episode 10, so unless it's renewed, we probably won't get a conclusion.  And if it is renewed, the odds of this arc being wrapped up in the first few episodes is pretty unlikely, as shows prefer to do season long story-arcs.

This is a real shame.  Sure, this show has its share of angst, yet it's the kind of positive attitude show that we could use more of.  If it could at least be given a chance to wrap this story line up it would have a chance at a second life on DVD, but as it stands now it's more likely to fall into the bin of forgotten shows.