Powers - Episode 1

Summary

The show takes place in a world where people with superhuman abilities, known as 'Powers' or 'Heroes', co-exist with normal humans and most have achieved some level of fame or infamy.  The episode starts off in the Powers division of the L.A.P.D. as Christian Walker (Sharlto Copley, District 9) and his incompetent partner bring a super powered criminal to a waiting jail cell.  Things don’t go well and Detective Walker is required to shoot and seemingly kill said criminal, but not before his bumbling partner gets his head cracked open during the escape attempt.  We then cut to Detective Walker at his condo watching a report of the incident on TV by ‘Extra!’ while he agonizes over the loss of his partner.  While in the condo Walker seems to have visions of a former enemy, who we find out later is an imprisoned super villain named Wolfe (Eddie Izzard, Hannibal).  Walker used to be a hero name Diamond but no longer has his powers, although he seems to long for them while watching a battle of three powers in the sky.
We are then fully introduced to the Powers division by Captain Cross (Adam Godley, Breaking Bad) through his indoctrination of the department to Walkers new partner Deena Pilgrim (Susan Heyward, The Following).  The Powers division is not well liked or respected by the ‘legitimate’ police force so they get very little support monetarily or otherwise.  The new partners are paired up and Walker reluctantly takes Pilgrim to drop of the belongings of his former partner to his family.  At lunch afterwards they are called to the scene of a dead ‘power’, named Olympia.  There they find a girl (Olesya Rulin, High School Musical) who was with the man before he died.  The girl is a ‘wannabe’, a teenager without powers who wants to have them, and they take the girl to the station for questioning.  They don’t get much from her although she does recognize Walker as Diamond and they have a brief conversation about his past.  Whatever killed Olympia looks to be a drug that is being distributed by a group of villainous ‘powers’, led by a thought dead criminal named Johnny Royale (Noah Taylor, Game of Thrones).  Royale has the ability to teleport and uses the ability to spring the girl from the Powers division, after dispatching with an unruly lieutenant of his own. 
Walker and Pilgrim go out looking for the girl but don’t find much until they question a group of young ‘powers’ and ‘wannabe’s’.  A girl with powers named Zora tells Walker that the girls name is Calista before using a catch phrase that Walker recognizes later as Johnny Royale’s calling card. Because of this Walker believes Royale is still alive and decides to visit Wolfe in a maximum security prison since Wolfe is the one who was thought to be responsible for Royale’s death.  Wolfe must be repeatedly lobotomized to be kept docile but he is able to infer that he did not in fact kill Royale and is also responsible for Walker losing his powers (which Pilgrim did not know).  Pilgrim tries to sympathize with Walker but he simply drops her off and continues his search.
Walker calls Zora and meets her at a party, only to find out that Calista just left.  He surmises that since Calista is such a Retro Girl (Michelle Forbes, TNG) fan, that she will try to go to her.  Earlier, while Walker was interrogating Calista he not only showed her where Retro Girl lived but also shared that he got his powers after falling a great distance and finding that he had the ability to fly. He finds Calista at the top of the high-rise building preparing to jump off to see if she can discover her powers in the same manner.  Even though he tries to get her to step down from the ledge she decides to jump and Walker jumps after her, trying to reactivate his powers.  This proves to be futile and the two begin to fall to the ground before Retro Girl swoops in and catches them both.  She drops Walker off at the top of the building and flies away with Calista in her arms.

IMO (In My Opinion)

I really enjoyed watching this show and I am very interested to see where it goes.  I can understand why some people would ask, “Why do we need another superhero show??”, but this really felt more like a procedural cop drama.  While shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Gotham seem to bring in a ‘super villain of the week’, Powers looks like it is going to show the impact that people who have superhuman abilities would have on everyday life and how we as humans deal with them. Sharlto Copley, Susan Heyward, Noah Taylor and Eddie Izzard all give very good performances and bring different aspects of the narrative to their characters.  I have not read this comic but even if you have the show and comic creator Brian Michael Bendis has said that while the show definitely starts at the comic book it will go in different directions, similar to the Walking Dead. 

Favorite Moment of the Episode

“All I want is science to work right!” – said by the Powers division coroner after examining the dead body of Olympia.  I loved this because I feel like this would be an honest frustration of people who had devoted their life to science only to see the rules thrown out the window.