N.A.T.A.L.I.E.’s inside the iron suit watching old footage of Riri and Natalie. Her expression is one of longing: she recognizes the moment she’s watching, but she’s incapable of truly remembering it. She tries to match her smile to Natalie’s on-screen grin, but the effort is labored, just shy of being accurate. Lyric Ross has been killing it as Natalie. There’s such nuance in her performance, and it’s on full display in this opening scene. It’s dawning on Natalie that she is only an approximation. A fun, beautiful, brilliant one, but a replica nonetheless.
Her quiet realization when she’s yanked backward in the iron suit. It’s Slug causing the commotion. They’ve shoved the iron suit into a truck and unwittingly stolen N.A.T.A.L.I.E. along with it. At White Castle, Zelma is sharing her hypotheses about which ancient source of evil may be powering Parker’s cloak. She suggests Dormammu, a demonic entity from the Dark Dimension and adversary to Doctor Strange. Riri isn’t really buying it; what would something with that much power want with someone like Parker, who’s only after money and power? Zelma points out that Parker is probably easy to manipulate. It’s an accurate read, considering she’s never met him.
Their brainstorming sesh is interrupted when the Blood Siblings blow in, kicking everyone out of White Castle so they can beat Riri down without an audience. Come to find out, though, Riri’s got hands! She holds her own with the Siblings much longer than I would’ve guessed (which is to say, more than 60 seconds). They eventually get the drop on her, and she pretends to accept her fate. She pleads for a clean, quick kill shot. As soon as they oblige, she encases them and the bullet in an impenetrable bubble.
Clown tags in next, bearing explosives. Riri thought they were girls! They were, until Riri killed John. Mind you, Clown never liked the guy, but her loyalty is to the team. Riri can’t help but scoff at that. Because: Eric André. His 30-second cameo in the pilot episode continues to pay dividends. Riri says Parker killed Stuart, and that proves that the whole team is disposable to him. While Clown decides whether to believe that, Riri uses physics to redirect Clown’s projectile and blow her back. It’s great to see Riri taking on formidable opponents without the suit. We’re finally seeing more of her potential instead of constantly being told that she has it.
Slug takes over the fight, chasing Riri down in the truck. Slug gets close enough to Riri for Natalie to break free from the truck and encase Riri in the suit. Together, they topple the truck and flip Slug the bird, and it’s the cutest thing to see the suit reflect a little flash of their combined personalities. That bonding moment is short-lived. Riri’s pissed that Nat left her without protection back in White Castle and Nat’s sorry she couldn’t meet all of Riri’s immediate needs while she was locked in the back of a truck. She rightly informs Riri that she’s the problem and, as usual, Riri takes no accountability. Riri tries to storm off in the suit, and I’m starting to think that’s its primary use is making dramatic exits from arguments. She doesn’t get far before falling out of the sky.
Turns out Ezekiel can shoot electricity now, and in his first show of power, he’s decided to knock Riri down a peg. She tries to appeal to his Joey-er self, but he’s not going for it. Zeke is 1,000 times sexier than Joe, especially when he says, “We’ll always have Alanis,” before he goes in for the kill. The best villain eras always begin with a glow-up — shout-out to buzzcuts and backbone.
Riri begs for her life, and there must be a remnant of Joe left in Zeke after all because he lets her live, but tells her she’s got to get the hell out of Chicago before Parker drags them both to whatever level of hell powers his cloak.
At home, Riri evades the mother of all lectures by conceding to Ronnie that she needs help. She knows that her mom’s Achilles’ heel is that Riri never asks for her help. Ronnie suggests letting go of her suit obsession, and at this point, I’m on board with that. All it ever seems to do is shut down and fall apart. Riri insists that the suit is special to her, and OMG, we get it. But for real: she built it to keep herself and Ronnie safe after Gary and Natalie were killed. It’s time for Riri to stop trying to outrun her demons. Ronnie says she’ll help her fight them, and Nat pops in to agree. A.I.-bestie truce: brokered!
Exposure therapy time! Ronnie takes Riri to Gary’s garage, and Natalie projects one of Riri’s childhood memories into the room. She’s eight years old, and Gary is reminding her to make room, in all her experimentation and study, to be a kid. Dominique is incredible here, as we see the effort it takes Riri to stand in this moment and work through her grief so that she can reclaim one of the happy memories she’s been repressing. She’s got her second wind, and she’s ready to go back into battle.
At Hood’s lair, Parker offers Zeke Riri’s old job, but he refuses. It’s cute that he thinks he can be a free agent after Parker powered him up with, like, a billion dollars’ worth of electromagnetic energy. In the garage, Riri isn’t having much success repairing her suit using science alone. She realizes she’ll have to fight magic with magic. I hope that means Zelma and Madeline are getting a lot more screen time before the finale!
At the lair, Clown has gathered enough evidence to confront Parker about killing Stuart. He doesn’t take kindly to being questioned. Everyone’s fired. The entire heist crew huddles into the elevator and disappears. More of Parker’s skin rots as he watches them go. Let’s hope this isn’t the last we’ve seen of this ridiculously good-looking group of delinquents. And let’s hope that the cloak doesn’t continue depleting the balance on Parker’s face card.
Yay! Zelma’s in the garage! To infuse the iron suit with a magic source, she suggests they steal energy from Dormammu. Everyone is wisely against that. They point out that Zelma isn’t even certain that this Dormammu dude is the entity behind Parker’s power. Xavier decides to stop being a diva and shows up, late but ready to help. He read the note Riri left in his room, and her Star Trek reference must’ve been top tier in it, because he’s here to help. He’s still not on board with N.A.T.A.L.I.E. but respects Riri’s choice to keep using her. The writers seem to be selling us hard on a romance here, but these two are still giving just-friend vibes.
Zeke tries to zap his insufferable neighbor’s flower bed into ashes and realizes he’s lost his superpowers. Scratch that. He’s lost control of his superpowers. Parker repo’d them when Zeke refused to work with him. Now he’s here to make Zeke do his bidding. Parker calls him his personal Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot, while Zeke apologetically starts killing people. The execution on this is just the right amount of corny, thanks to Alden Ehrenreich.
They pay a visit to the oligarch who owns all the companies Zeke and the heist crew robbed. The oligarch calls Parker a “small-time crook in a ridiculous getup,” and if that ain’t the truth… The oligarch is actually Parker’s estranged dad and is totally unimpressed with the gun Parker pulls on him. But he does give up his estate to Parker, likely owing more to the black veins that are creeping up his neck and cheeks than the pistol he’s shakily holding. Dad warns that taking everything from him won’t fill the gaping hole in Parker’s soul. You mean the hole you opened when you kicked him out of the house right after his mom died when he was 12?!
At the garage, the suit is finally ready to test. Zelma’s been conjuring magical energy, and Riri’s been working out the tech. But when the two elements combine, the reactor overloads. It can’t handle both the magic and Natalie. In the end, magic wins. Natalie tells Riri she loves her, right before she disappears. If Lyric Ross is gone for real, I’m gonna be ready to fight in the finale.
Here’s hoping that the cloak doesn’t continue depleting the balance on Parker’s face card.
