Summary #2 for those keeping score. Blade is a low-budget version of Batman, except Blade uses guns, while Batman uses his brain. While Batman is considered by many to be the world’s greatest detective, Blade can’t find the wrongdoer in him until he publishes his evil plans on the cover of a magazine. Batman has an elaborate mansion, a yacht, and an underground crime-fighting headquarters. Blade lives underground in a grandmother’s basement with a broken laptop and a Radio Shack security system. Batman enlists the crime-fighting help of his faithful butler Alfred (who was a bit of a kicker in his day) and Robin the Boy Wonder. Blade has hired his real estate agent to watch his basement and is following the sole survivor of the Wonder Twins in hopes of finding Colonel Mustard’s ever-elusive card.
Batman has the Batmobile. The very name Batmobile sends chills down the spine. Blade has the Blademobile, which elicits laughs and a small amount of pity when it stops at a traffic light and sputters like a broken lawnmower. Batman has a utility belt that is the envy of even Superman. Blade has tied pieces of junk from an Ace Hardware store to his shirt. Batman has a Batsuit which is a modern armored shell. Sleek, stylish, and functional, the Batsuit is the epitome of engineering and crime fighting. Blade dresses up in gothic Garanimals. Batman has the bat signal that strikes fear into the hearts of all criminals and joy into the hearts of the citizens of Gotham. Blade has a broken flashlight.
Batman is the symbolic representation of a modern Knight in search of the ideals that will bring justice, honor and peace. Ready to ride to the defense of the beautiful Gotham damsel at a moment’s notice, Batman remains vigilant and always ready to deliver justice swiftly. Blade has a broken flashlight.
Back to TiVo we go.
We’re treated to a low camera angle of the baddie’s spider lair from earlier in the show. The bad guy has tied bums to the upside-down rafters to make things easier for his still-to-be-seen giant spider. The bad guys’ staff are using batons to electrocute the bums for their amusement. Overall, not a bad way to spend the day if you work for the bad guy. I can attest that it sounds a bit more interesting than hanging out in a 7-square-foot cubicle made of a material whose colors derive from a historical retrospective of various bodily fluids. They drag one of the tramps.
Jayna returns to the webmaster’s house. This time he is dressed appropriately instead of looking like Mr. Rogers’ retarded brother. However, he’s so busy bathing in the Canadian Mist that he really can’t help but tell her about his kids or something. She listens to her stupid ramblings much longer than I do as she starts checking what’s on other channels. Looking back, we finally see her asking how she can find Blade. I guess she’s figured out that he’s been following her for days. Tip: use the rearview mirror.
I was starting to wonder, but maybe she noticed. Webmaster pulls out some newspaper clippings from a scrapbook. The part that confuses me is that if she was able to find the webmaster with a Google search, why doesn’t she Google Blade? Oh well, that wouldn’t be nearly as interesting and its for darn sure that the nearly illiterate Blade would not have anything on his website except a looping midi file, the graphic of a giant traffic cone and the under construction banner that pollutes half the Internet. It would probably also have popups. When does this hardcore webmaster find time to put together a Blade scrapbook?
Jayna has gone native and either stole someone’s car or has a rental from the same place Blade got his bike. She gears up in her new vehicle, makes sure she has bullets, and starts wandering to the location mentioned in the newspaper article the webmaster had in his personal Blade scrapbook. For someone who didn’t think twice about jumping into a crack house, she looks like she’s going to shit her pants now.
Hiding in place, he practices his CSI poses and begins to wander. The place is practically urban decay at its finest. He gets bored with her police poses and lets his guard down. That gives Blade the opening he needs and he sneaks up on him with his sneaky patented Blade. He warns her to leave town again, but she refuses. She really wants to find her brother’s killer and she’s sure Blade knows the answer. Of all the things she would expect Blade to have, an answer isn’t one of them. Then, out of the blue, she asks him for a Coors Light. Look around you lady, do you see a refrigerator?
Bored, Blade uses his T-Mobile headset to call his real estate agent. He isn’t too amused to find out that Blade is hanging out with some Super Friends rejects.
The bad guy must be celebrating National Pizza Month but in his own evil way. He’s making some kind of crazy garlic concentrate that’s so powerful it dissolves people. I hate to break it to the bad guy, but it’s really hard to get repeat business if he disbands his clients. Maybe he is planning to send it to his competition so that his pizzas will be the ones that will dissolve people while his pizza will be safe. Cowardly, but then again, that’s why he’s the evil genius and not the guy with the broken flashlight.
Blade has taken Jayna to Blade Cave. Not that she couldn’t have found him near the stairs, but he took her anyway. He brags about cutting up the store’s leftover mannequins as Jayna watches with a mixed array of emotions ranging from ostentatious confusion to utter pity. Blade gives those plastic symbols of capitalism the raucous, vigorous beating they deserve. Blade also managed to improvise his own Blade-a-rang with what looks like a stack of Pogs and the center of one of those spinning hubcaps. He spoils a plastic mannequin very well.
Jayna begins to walk through Blade Cave to inspect crime-fighting gear. She first sees an upgraded cow milker. God knows what kind of crime Blade fights, maybe osteoporosis? She then finds a super chrome remover and has a hard time not laughing at Blade and his real estate agent. She does a good job of not laughing. Blade gives her a second rate RFID chip to track her. I fell asleep for a second, but the agent is convincing Jayna to go to “Thong’s” house, which has to be a hot strip club. It looks like Spike TV won’t disappoint after all.
Jayna walks into a gallery. What the hell is this? Where are the brass poles and the strobe lights? What a load! Now Jayna is talking to the bad boy we haven’t seen in an hour. He’s chatting with her, so maybe he’s planning more target practice. They exchange names and stuff. Then the bad boy tells her that he knows who she is, telling her that he killed her brother and pointing her out to her bad boy gang in case she wants to go 10 rounds. Needless to say, she quickly turns hostile and runs to her rental car where she grabs a spare rifle that she took from Blade. Blade sees this through the RFID chip or something. She leaves him some headphones so she can talk to him while she tries to shoot him.
Blade gets on his motorcycle and rides so he can catch up, but he’s too slow. She makes the classic mistake of talking to the bad guy for so long that her group goes up the stairs of the next building and beats the shit out of him. Blade shows up and finds her RFID chip and gets mad because she’s still paying for that rifle and it’s the last one.
The bad guy decides to make this interesting by taking an unconscious Jayna back to the bad guy’s headquarters and shooting her with the same drug the detective tried to frame his brother for. Of course, she passes out and the bad boy does the bad boy thing by throwing his drugged body out of his building. Splat goes the weasel.
Suddenly, her corpse ends up in a bag in the coroner’s inbox. Way to go! Blade will now go back to looking for clues the old-fashioned way. It looks like Blade is in the gutter without his sword and I’m two six-packs away from being able to finish this show. For a Shaft-meets-Batman-style detective, this Blade sidekick is as dense as my mother-in-law’s fruitcake. And believe me, after a decade of metallurgical chemistry I know density. If the US military could get the mother-in-law to do to steel what she does to wheat, no tank in our arsenal would fall prey to the most cowardly of explosives. You know how fast food fries (I know I’m supposed to call Freedom Fries) never go bad? Do you ever find it under his car seat and know it’s like ten years old, but it still looks like the day it was made? Forget being in awe of Egyptian mummies, these things will outlast even the vaunted toastie and nuclear Armageddon. I don’t want to be embalmed when I die, I want to be battered and fried, that way I’ll never rot no matter what. To hell with formaldehyde, a $1 bucket of McDonalds, and viola, I’m good for ages.
Regardless, Blade is apparently at the end of the detective spectrum that Inspector Clouseau occupies on a bad day. Actually, I take it back, Inspector Clouseau had disguises, Blade doesn’t even change his clothes. Inspector Clouseau solved crimes, albeit accidentally. Blade apparently occupies the end of the spectrum just minus the pointy hat. With his only chance of finding a lead now dead, Blade is left to wander around chatting up his real estate agent.
On the screen, we are treated to some kind of MTV video about Jayna’s life. In my living room I am treated to the fast forward button and a cool silver bullet. Wow! Let the entertainment begin.
Looks like the bad guy wasn’t that much of a wizard and the coroner is a bit of an idiot. My God, is everyone in this town taking stupid pills? Jayna unzips her body bag and leaves before anyone can tell she’s gone. Maybe her superpowers weren’t limited to becoming mindless inanimate objects after all. Of course, it’s raining outside, so she scores one for the Spike TV crew. However, she waits; just to add some suspense, the bad guy picks her up at the coroner’s office. Either he’s not as dumb a villain as we started out, or he covers his bases carefully. I know that if I ever launch a plan to take over the world (or my zip code), I won’t throw people off buildings without a spotter to ensure a proper landing. Point well taken Spike TV, point well taken.
Let’s grab a new 6-pack and meet back here in a few minutes!