Hit-Monkey Season 2 Review

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This is a DynaMic Network podcast.

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Hi and welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Marvelous Joe. And I'm his twin brother, Johnny DC. And in this episode, we are going to review the latest Marvel television animated release, Hitmonkey Season 2. Hitmonkey Season 1 was a big surprise when we reviewed that, I think back in 2021.

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And it's not surprising that the show got a season two and season two, every bit as good as the first, if not even better. So I'm really excited to talk about it. Yeah, absolutely. Hit Monkey is a vibe and I was totally there for it. And I can't wait to talk about it. Before that, we're going to break down the comic book movie news that came out this past week, of which there was a lot of news that came out from the recent D23 conference. Marvel decided to save like all their good shit for D23, and they kind of phoned in Comic Con.

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We're going to be talking about the Agatha all along official trailer. We're going to describe the footage that came out for Captain America, Brave New World, fantastic for first steps Daredevil, Bornegan and Ironheart. And we got the big news this past week that Daredevil and Wolverine has surpassed one billion dollars at the worldwide box office. So it is just a full on Marvel episode. None of that DC shit this time.

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None of that boring news from the shit fucks down the street, as we like to call them now. She's all Marvel. This is going to be a fantastic episode. I'm so thrilled. I don't even know why I'm here. Like, I don't need to be here. You can go. You can go. I'm just here to say things like shit. Damn. And that is whack. OK, not another teen movie.

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As always guys, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. Our artificially intelligent duel simulator AJ9K has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up.

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Guys, be sure to tune into the other shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network this week, including Max Destruction, which pits your favorite action heroes from film and television against each other. This week, hosts Scotty and Gilly are pitting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles against the Warriors of Virtue. On the Senjoworld podcast, host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime and manga characters. This Thursday, Zach's doing an Olympic sports-themed episode.

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between Team Berna and Team Mud. Yeah, that'll be an interesting episode. None of the shows on the network have ever done anything like that, so really excited to see how that sports-themed episode goes. On the Console Combat podcast, hosts John and Dean find out who would win in fights between popular video game characters. In yesterday's episode, they determined who would win between Samus Aran from Metroid and Mega Man. Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all the shows.

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in the DynaMic Podcast Network. But with that out of the way, quick to No Prize! A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Duel No Prize, is a digital award we pushed on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week, we asked, other than Dynamic Duel, what is your favorite podcast in the DynaMic Network and why? And we only got...

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one answer, but it was a good answer. This week's no prize goes to Scott Camacho who said, I'm not biased or anything, but, um, I really like max destruction. Dustin's cheesiness followed by Ken's quick wit makes for a great show. And I love all the action stars. I heard there's a new set of twins that is going to be doing it now. So I'm definitely going to watch out for them. That's the show to watch. Max destruction.

05:10
Yeah, Scotty is not biased at all. It's not like he's the new main host for Max Destruction going forward. That's right. Yeah. Ken, the initial host of Max Destruction, the guy who started the show, has stepped away from the podcast and Scotty is bringing aboard his twin brother, Gilly, which means that there are two sets of twins running podcasts in the DynaMic Podcast Network. And we want to give a quick.

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Super heartfelt shout out to Ken. We've been a fan of his ever since he put out the you call those tactics podcast Ken has been a huge supporter of dynamic duel. He was our very first executive producer He was essentially the guy who started the dynaMic podcast network because he asked us if he could start his own show and use Our simulator and everything like that so he's just a fucking legend in the dynaMic network community and We will always be happy to have him on as a guest

06:03
Yeah, he's guested on this podcast before for our Punisher review. The guy is just a genius when it comes to anything military related, considering he is active military. That was always something interesting that he brought to Max Destruction, the fact that he's a literal military strategist for the army speculating on these battles. Now, Scotty, the new host, was also in the military, so I'm definitely excited for his matches as well.

06:28
Oh yeah, Scotty has brought a lot to the Max Destruction podcast over the last few months as he's been co-hosting and he has great chemistry with his brother Gilly dating back to the womb. So we know that that duo will make Ken proud and really looking forward to seeing what they do with the show in the future. Especially with their upcoming episode, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. the Warriors of Virtue, that's going to be a great way to kick off this new era of Max Destruction. So great answer Scotty, you win this week's No Prize.

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If you the listener want a shot at winning your own no prize, stay tuned to later on in this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week. And now that that's done, onto the news!

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Alright, this past weekend we had the D23 event where Disney presents all of the upcoming projects they have on their slate to investors. They showed a lot of exciting footage at the event, which good luck finding video clips of those on the internet, but we're going to break down the clips for you here. The first trailer we're going to talk about is Agatha All Along, which actually was released to the general public as the official trailer. This wasn't like a leak or anything, but this is coming off of the teaser trailer that we got just a few weeks ago.

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The Agatha All Along series is about the witch getting back her powers that were taken from her by the Scarlet Witch at the end of Wandavision. That is whack! To do that, she has to walk the witch's road. So she gets some of her old witch friends to do this with her and they sing a song. I don't know if this is going to be a musical or not. I guess, you know, Wandavision had a lot of...

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musical elements to it and since Agatha all along is kind of a sequel of sorts to WandaVision, maybe it makes sense that's why there's music, but it reminded me a lot of the Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold song from the first Hobbit movie as Agatha starts singing a song called The Ballad of the Witch's Road. All I know is anyone who's looking forward to this but also trashing the Joker for being a musical is a hypocrite. Damn!

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The trailer for Agatha all along does have some interesting moments here. We see a witch that looks like the wicked witch of the west from the Wizard of Oz. We see some scary moments where like this witch demon chick is like crucified on fire. It's kind of freaky looking. I don't know what to make of Aubrey Paz's character. She definitely looks to be like the wild card of the group, it seems. It'll definitely make for some pretty solid Halloween viewing this spooky season.

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There was a line though that I absolutely despise where Agatha tells, I think, Billy, the Scrawler Witch's son, she says, time to finish the road, last one there's a good person. It's so fucking cheesy. Horrible delivery, horrible writing. I hope it's not indicative of some of the cheesiness that may be to come and it's just kind of a one-off bad joke. Because otherwise, this all looks like a lot of fun and I can't wait for it to come out next month on September 18th. It's going to be a two-episode premiere.

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and then they're going to do one episode a week after that. Blank, blank! That's so stupid. At D23, Marvel also showed trailers for Captain America Brave New World, Fantastic Four First Steps, Daredevil Born Again, and Iron Hearts, but none of those trailers were officially released. I'll just kind of do a quick run through of some of the exciting things that these trailers showed. On the Captain America Brave New World clip, we saw.

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President Thunderbolt Ross give a speech congratulating Sam for his help in acquiring adamantium from the celestial Tiamat which had sprung out of the Indian Ocean in the Eternals movie. Oh shit! Those rumors are true. Shut up!

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There's just a lot of action in that trailer. We get some lines from Sarbra, who was formerly an Israeli superhero in the comics, but they're making her a former Black Widow in the movie. We've already gotten a look at what the Red Hulk looks like in the first trailer for Captain America Brave New World. Sort of. We saw his back. In this one, we actually get to see the front of him, Aunt Harrison Ford's face all in red, which was really cool. He would have made a really good Hulk back in the day when he was younger.

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It's a great character design. Yeah, it looks a lot like Harrison Ford as much as you would want it to look like him while still looking like this raging monster true to the comics. So really looking forward to seeing Harrison Ford Hulk out. But one of the other really exciting moments we got from this trailer was when President Thunderbolt Ross asked Sam Wilson to recreate the Avengers. So it looks like by the end of this movie, we're going to have the new Avengers team solidified, perhaps. Or maybe he's going to start his quest to form that team.

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I'd be surprised if we had an actual solidified team by the end of this. You might be right. I mean, Sam Wilson did question Thunderbolt Ross. He was like, you destroyed the Avengers when you established the Accords. And Thunderbolt Ross is basically like, eh, I had a change of heart after the Avengers saved the world during the events of Endgame. So I guess that's a believable reason for him to essentially 180 on his position regarding superheroes. Of course, this new team of Avengers...

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seems like it would be under official government control, so who knows what's going to happen with the team. There was some more footage released that I believe came from Comic-Con, although I think they re-showed it at the D23 event, which was kind of a teaser of sorts for the Fantastic Four First Steps movie. There was a whole lot of reveals to come out of this footage, but it definitely set the tone, which is very much in keeping with this 1960s feel.

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I can definitely see why Matt Shackman got the job after directing WandaVision, because the way everybody acts and looks is very much in keeping with how he directed those 60s episodes on WandaVision. Yeah, the cinematography here is very, very bright, very clean and very in keeping with this idealistic sci-fi retro 1960s design aesthetic that looks really cool to see on screen. Yeah, we see the Fantastic Four suit up as astronauts.

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They go up into space and it's almost like they're part of a documentary talking to the camera as like a promotional piece for the general public learning about this space mission that they're about to go on. Reed Richards is like, this is my buddy Ben. He's the best pilot in the division. And Ben's like, yeah, best looking, which is interesting because, you know, it's a joke, but it's ironic that he then turns into the thing who is known for being this hideous rock monster.

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And there's a clip here that shows him as part of a dating game show where a female contestant selects him out of the three possible suitors. The clip showed the fantasticar and the big reveal at the end was Galactus. He looks exactly like he does in the comic books. He's this giant figure. You only really get to see his face, but the scale of him is massive, similar to the size of the celestials that we saw in Eternals. Yeah, he's like Kaiju size, right? Right. And he's peeking through a window.

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They did a great job of capturing the look and the scale of the character for sure. With the square glowing pupils? Yeah, yeah. At D23 they also showed a trailer for Daredevil Born Again which was really exciting to see. We got news that the show is going to make its debut on Disney Plus this spring. It looks like a direct continuation of the Netflix Daredevil series which is all that the fans want, right? But there were some great surprises to be seen in the footage including our first look at Hector Alaya as the White Tiger.

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His costume looked a little bit homegrown because it looks like the premise of the show is that Matt represents Hector, who believes himself to be a hero and called to fight crime on the streets as a costume vigilante. But we also get to see other cool characters like Muse, we see Bullseye, we see the Punisher Maker return. That was really cool to see Jon Bernthal returning to the character. There's this great diner scene between Matt Murdock and the Kingpin where Matt's telling him like basically,

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If you step out of line, I'm going to be there. And Kingpin, very imposingly, is like, who's going to stop me? Matt Murdock or your other half? Yeah, that's probably one of my favorite parts of the trailer, too. I saw that and I was like, oh, shit. There was another great shot where Daredevil opens up his costume closet. And we see like five different masks of the Daredevil costume, including, you know, his yellow mask. There's a white one in there and he has like three different variations of red. Yeah, black one. I was like, blank, blank.

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Just stop, right? I know you're the token DC guy in this episode, but you could also try to not be annoying. Damn. The last footage we got shown at D23 was from Ironheart, the upcoming series for Disney Plus, which looks very different than what I thought it was going to be. I thought largely it was going to be more like the comics where we see Riri at MIT building this new suit of armor. But.

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we learn early on in the trailer that she actually gets kicked out of MIT for skipping classes and just using the campus for its facilities to rebuild the armor that she had already constructed in Wakanda in the Black Panther Wakanda Forever movie. Because Shuri didn't let Riri take the suit with her at the end of that film. So she's basically back to square one trying to recreate that she gets kicked out of MIT and she ends up partnering with a gang led by the Hood to

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steal resources and money to recreate her suit. So, it all felt very much like set it off. I don't know if our listeners remember that movie from the 90s with Queen Latifah and like Jada Pinkett where a group of girls essentially become bank robbers. This is very much in that vein, which is something that I wasn't expecting. I didn't know that it was going to be like a redemptive arc for Riri Williams, but it's an interesting take for sure. The hood looks pretty cool. There's definitely a supernatural element going on there.

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and the rumor is that Mephisto is going to appear in Ironheart, so it'll be interesting to see how that supernatural aspect plays into this more sci-fi tech angle with the Iron Man suit. Yeah, in my opinion, the hood looked like the most interesting thing in this trailer. Anthony Ramos, I think, gave off the most charisma, probably even more so than the lead Dominique Thorne, though, you know, she looks like she'll do a good job as well. I have to say, I wasn't looking forward to this, but the trailer definitely has me intrigued. For sure. Yeah, me too.

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I wasn't a big fan of Dominique Thorne in the Black Panther Wakanda Forever movie, but she impressed me more in this trailer. So yeah, definitely looking forward to it. Based on all of this footage that we got from D23, I do have to say that it looks like Marvel Studios is absolutely stepping up their cinematography for their television series. That's a great take. Yeah, for sure. I noticed that too. But speaking about all the projects coming out for Marvel that were previewed at D23, that brings us to our question of the week.

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Which upcoming Marvel Studios film or show are you most looking forward to and why? Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to Instagram. Be sure to answer before August 17th.

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And our last bit of Marvel news, just a short quick headline. Deadpool and Wolverine has surpassed one billion dollars at the worldwide box office. It's no surprise, I think, to anybody who's seen the film. It is a very fun movie that you can listen to our review from a few episodes ago. But I think the reason this news is so important is because a lot of people were kind of down and out on the superhero genre as a whole. You know, you heard a lot to talk about superhero fatigue from people and.

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I don't want to say that superhero fatigue is over and done with, but it's clear that people are still excited to see quality superhero movies. Now the first two films did not reach a billion, is that correct? But they got close? Correct. Okay, yeah, that's huge for a rated R film. I think the Joker is still the highest grossing rated R film of all time. We'll see if Deadpool and Wolverine can top that. Honestly, I would be surprised if it didn't. Oh, it will.

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and super proud of Marvel for bringing the box office in general out of its slump and for bringing audiences back to the superhero genre. Because we all know that DC wasn't going to be able to do it. I'm sorry, what? You heard me. Nobody goes to see DC films. Just wait a couple of months, OK? Joker 1 made a billion dollars. Joker, Vali-Adu could easily make a billion dollars as well. That would actually be fantastic, because then the studios will see that, you know, these movies are worth continuing. They'll all be doing this till they're 90.

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That's right.

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But I think that does it for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and get into our main event, where we review the Marvel Television Hulu Original Series, Hitmonkey Season 2.

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Hit Monkey Season 2 is a 20th century production on Hulu created by Josh Gordon and Will Speck and directed by Kevin Mellon. It stars Fred Tataskior, Jason Sudeikis, Leslie Jones, Kristen Milioti and Nat Faxon. Season 1 was a surprise hit for us, I think both of our expectations were surpassed. We rated Season 1 4 stars, calling it cool, funny, violent, heartfelt and surprisingly complex despite its high concept premise.

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And we weren't alone in being impressed by the show because it got a season two. And I think season two wraps up all those qualities, except for maybe the comedy, because the season wasn't very funny. But I think it was even more violent and more emotionally complex. Because I don't know about you, Jonathan, but I felt fucking devastated after a few of these episodes. And by the time the season ended, I was kind of emotionally wrecked. The way the season ended kind of stuck with me a few days after watching it.

20:44
Yeah, the way the season concluded was definitely gut-wrenching. But I would disagree with you in saying that it was not very funny. I thought it was actually very funny. Maybe not as funny as season one, but I was laughing pretty much the whole time. I guess I should bring up our spoiler warning. If you haven't watched Hitmonkey seasons one or two, listen no further. Go watch the show as long as you're of a mature age and you don't have a weak stomach for strong violence and heavy themes.

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I liken Hitmonkey Season 2's violence to the invincible animated series on Amazon, even though I've only seen Season 1 of that show. But things got really gross and graphic this season. Like, Season 1 was pretty violent, but I think the biggest standout holy shit death from that season was the old gun supplier woman in the fish warehouse who fell on the conveyor belt and then got sawed in half. Do you remember that? Yes, yeah. Like...

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The shock value of that kill felt pretty tame compared to some of the shit that went down this season. Like, this season you had people sliced down the middle, ripped apart, hung on meat hooks and burned, flattened by slow moving vehicles, dissolved, heads were sawed off, bodies exploded. It was insanity. Like, over time that amount of gore does have a numbing effect. Well, it was like body horror in a way, especially with the trees and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. The violence had a unique horror.

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to it, especially towards the end. Yeah, but what disturbed me more than the violence were the emotional challenging moments this season such as Haruka's death, Akiko's backstory, the Shepard's suicide, and Hitmonkey's sacrifice at the end. Just like the series shows no mercy with the violence, it showed no mercy with my heart. Which time after time in the latter half of the season just sank into my stomach. It was tragedy after tragedy after tragedy right up until the very last shot of the season.

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They're well-earned moments, but it's a dark show. By far Marvel's darkest project that they could conceivably ever produce, which is one of the reasons why I think this season was moved to 20th century television, from Marvel television, maybe. And interestingly, none of the other Marvel characters from the comics, to my knowledge, were in this season. Like the Alderman or the co-op members, those weren't characters from the comics, they were original here. The only other Marvel character here was Lady Bullseye, carrying over from season one.

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Really? I was going to ask you about that because I figured that all of these characters were from the comics and I was like, are these, you know, a Marvel version of the Suicide Squad in a way? Because that's what I was thinking as I was watching it. But I'm surprised to hear that all of them are original. That's wow. Yeah, the show's kind of like separating itself from the larger Marvel brand, it feels like even though the show is branded as Marvel. But if you guys are interested in the comic book character of Hitmonkey, you should definitely check out our Gleek versus Hitmonkey duel episode.

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The character in the comics has oftentimes gone down a comedic route because the premise is comedic, especially in the Deadpool comics and stuff like that where we see Monkey try to kill Wade. But the show rightfully ignores the more silly elements of the character and kind of goes all in on its serious approach. Does it? I don't know if I agree with that. I think the show gets pretty absurd with all of its characters.

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I mean, they throw jokes around here and there. The heaviness of the violence and the darkness are only slightly offset by the fact that we're watching a show about a Japanese macaque wearing a black suit and sunglasses. I think a better balance of comedy and tragedy could have been struck if the jokes had been better. Like, I think a lot of the lines here could and should have probably been workshopped. Which is especially surprising since you have some comedic geniuses on the show like Jason

24:25
Like, I wonder how they were OK with making lame and even dated jokes about Greek yogurt, Annie Lennox is walking on broken glass or being a duo like Pamela Anderson in that red swimsuit. Like, I have no idea. I still chuckled at those bits. I don't know. I didn't think it was terribly unfunny. I did think it was interesting that Jason Sudeikis was a consulting producer on this show apparently according to the credits. I wonder how much of that had to do with his line specifically. Yeah, he got the top credit.

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at the end of every episode, which I thought was pretty neat. But yeah, I think this season could have been even more palatable with better jokes. But another reason that I think that season two felt much more visceral than season one was due to the fact that the animation was better. Like one of our biggest complaints about season one was that the animation felt largely like a step up from storyboards with low frame rates, sometimes even missing action scenes.

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And that was likely due to Marvel television's transition under the Marvel Studios umbrella in the middle of production, which was something that cancelled a lot of Marvel's planned shows except for Modoc and Hitmonkey. But you could tell the animators didn't have any such obstacle with season 2 because the frame rate was better, you know, you had more subtle facial and body motions that helped sell the characters' emotional states, and you had beautifully rendered environments, like a lot of them were computer-generated environments.

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It was really nice to see the animators be able to execute more fully on their vision this go around. Yeah, I don't remember hating the animation of season one. I actually kind of liked the low budget quality because it made it feel like Grindhouse. But I also really enjoyed the animation for this season. Honestly, it got me kind of jealous how good the animation was, especially coming off of something like My Adventures with Superman, which doesn't have bad animation. But when you compare to the quality of Hit Monkey, you could definitely

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tell that the artists spent much more time with this. I think my adventures with Superman has fine animation. I would be more embarrassed about the tomorrow verse, though. Oh, yeah, especially that. I wasn't even thinking about that because I was trying to block it. But yeah, I would agree.

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I thought another improvement over season 1 was the music. And I'm not talking about the original score because that's always been incredible, but season 2 featured a lot more licensed music with some phenomenal choices like Bed of Nails by Patrick Austin, What You Came For by Wallio, True Killer by The Sneaks, and one in particular that really stuck with me was the beautifully haunting Japanese song from the end of episode 7 when Haruka died called Good Morning by an artist named Yuki.

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And I have to give a shout out to Reddit for coming through on that one because that was a really hard song to find. And I thought it perfectly captured the devastating emotions I was feeling when that episode came to a close. And I listen to it now and it still makes me sad. So whoever picked the music for the season did fantastic. Yes, the soundtrack was amazing. I was like, who put this together? Quentin Tarantino? Because it is perfection. Like, I'm going to need that list of songs that you have.

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I have a Spotify link I can send to you, and I'll probably post it in the show notes if people are curious. Nice, yes please, do that. Let's go ahead and move into the character breakdown, starting with Hitmonkey who is voiced by Fred Tataskior. Just like season 1, I'm surprised Hitmonkey was not voiced by an actual monkey, because Fred Tataskior is a genius voice actor who has also done the voice of the Hulk, he does the voice of Devil Dinosaur in Moongirl and Devil Dinosaur on Disney+.

27:58
He is the best voice actor with animalistic sounds. Yeah, I loved the noises that Hitmonkey made and it was like a good juxtaposition for how crass Bryce was. Yeah, and there was real emotion behind his sounds too. Like you don't really need subtitles for the Hitmonkey character, although we did get them in one scene. But other than that, you know exactly what he's saying. Exactly, yeah. Now Hitmonkey's arc was difficult and tragic this season.

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Carrying over from season 1, he was a skilled assassin who never wanted to kill, but always found himself in situations where he must, like some kind of cruel fate. At the start of this season, he's lost, unhappy, and feels like the killing is taking a psychological toll on him. And what he really longs for is a family who can relate to what he's going through, and he finds that in the assassin's cooperative. He strives to be one of them, drawn to their family dynamic and their goal of ending violence.

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and he relates to Boon and his values. And by showing Hitmonkey his origin as a lab experiment, Boon convinces Hitmonkey that he's been cursed by mankind's wickedness, and that humanity has always been only about death. And it shakes Hitmonkey to the core, especially seeing how his actions affected the person he cared the most about, Akiko, who transformed herself into Lady Bullseye. In the very end, it seemed like he gave into his despair.

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thinking about his so-called curse as he sacrificed himself to kill her. It was a heroic final action rooted in misery and even when he came back as a ghost tethered to Bryce, he didn't look happy. And I think that was the real tragedy that stuck with me. And I'm really really looking forward to seeing what they do with Hitmonkey if there is a season 3.

29:47
Oh, good gosh, please let there be a season three. I mean, you can't end it with that shot. That would be just so tragic. Yeah, I hope that this show really finds its audience in the same way that season one did and that they announce a season three for Hitmonkey because it needs to happen for sure. I did think the revelation that he was an experimental monkey kind of came out of nowhere in a way for this show.

30:10
Yeah, that was something not from the comics. In the comics, he was just this really astute monkey who was able to pick up the assassin's killing methods really easily. But here it was almost like they gave him some kind of genetic enhancement superpower or something like that. Right. Yeah, I didn't care for it. And I think it came a little bit too late. Maybe if it had come earlier or maybe even in the first season, it would have been more palatable. But I didn't know if I needed that twist here.

30:38
Yeah, it did come late so they weren't really able to explore that origin, which is again why we need a season 3. Yeah, for sure. Let's go ahead and move on to Bryce Fowler, who was voiced by Jason Sudeikis. I was a little mixed on Bryce this season because the guy is never consistent, whether it be his humor or his motivations. At times it seems like he's this plucky, wisecracking badass. At other times he's this depressed, selfish asshole.

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And while I'd like to say that just makes him a multifaceted character, what I really want is to just see Bryce pick a lane, I guess. Well, he has to exist in multiple lanes in a way because Monkey can't really. You know, in a way, Bryce is the main character of the show. Yeah, and you know, we may see him kind of pick a lane in this season as he deals with the guilt over the fact that the devil claimed Hitmonkey's soul due to his own selfish deals to get out of hell. Again, I hope we...

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get to see the fallout of that in season 3. The culmination of Bryce's character growth ever since season 1 came at the end of this season when he tried to console Hitmonkey about his lost family in the co-op, telling him that Boon was wrong and that humanity isn't all about death, it's about living. And right after that he used himself as a human shield to save his daughter Iris from Akiko, knowing that turning corporeal would doom him to hell for all eternity.

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And this was on top of this season long arc where he tried to get to know Iris, at first trying to buy her off, and then apologizing and bonding with her, helping her find herself in this crazy mercenary world he was involved in, and then actually forming a truly caring relationship by the end. In a way, both Bryce and Hitmonkey's stories are all about finding their family. The only difference is that Bryce found his this season, whereas Hitmonkey tragically did not.

32:29
Well, Hitmonkey took responsibility in a way for destroying his family from season one. I really liked Bryce this season. I really liked him last season as well. Yeah, the character is inconsistent, but I loved what they did with him here, how he could go in and out of his corporeal form with that timer on his hand. It was a great gimmick that I thought they used to really good effect in this season. I liked his telekinesis abilities this season.

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It makes you think that DC should make Deadman even cooler by giving him telekinesis. Yeah, just make him like more able to affect the physical world in a way. Yeah, that would be cool. Let's go to move on to Officer Haruka, who was voiced by Ali Mackie, who gives a great performance again. Her character's always the most morally good character in the show, serving as a beacon to kind of guide Hitmonkey and Bryce.

33:22
And because of that, it was pretty interesting this season that Haruka's journey involved her being tempted by the power of evil through the Bonsai Master Sword. And she gave into temptation a few times, ultimately though choosing to reject it and thereby dying at the hands of her friend rather than the other way around. Super sad. But it was neat that her character drove a lot of the plot.

33:44
this time around. You know, she first introduced the alderman sword to Hitmonkey and Bryce, and then she was the one that discovered the truth about the co-op and decided to steal back the sword. She really was a great character with tremendous buildup over the two seasons, which is definitely what made her death so tragic and the emotion around it so earned. Oh yeah, and especially how she was talking about going back to her father's fishing village and retiring there only to be buried at sea.

34:14
Poetry, it was poetry. That whole scene I was like, oh, okay, someone's gonna die here. I didn't actually think it was gonna be Haruka. So yeah, it was definitely surprising when it was. Speaking of that, let's move on to Akiko Yokohama voiced by Olivia Munn. Holy shit, man. I take back everything I said from our season one review about how it didn't make sense for Akiko to become Lady Bullseye and how they ruined her arc when she put on the mask.

34:40
Here she admits that she took on the lady bullseye mantle because she didn't think she could be strong or vicious enough on her own, which was totally valid reasoning. I was like, okay, that makes sense. From season one, we saw her as a speechwriter for her uncle's campaign back in Tokyo and she served as the surrogate family for Hitmonkey. But what we didn't see was this whole devastating backstory involving the loss of her family and being bullied and committed to a sanitarium. That whole scene was really fucking heavy.

35:09
And the animation for that sequence was just heart-wrenching. Like when she cried out in the sanitarium and her sadness was depicted as layers and layers of grief within herself, it was just a really effective moment at showing how broken and devastated she is deep down. And it was in that emotional flashback where you really sympathized with her, with what she had gone through. But the thing is they followed that immediately with a scene of her sawing a dude's head off in a bathtub.

35:37
And the contrast of those two scenes made it one of the most challenging moments for me to process in this season. It was like the floor just dropped out from under me and it completely sold Akiko's complexity and her personal transformation into Lady Bullseye. So yeah, I take back everything I said. I thought this whole thing was brilliant with Akiko. Absolutely. It was also interesting to see how Lady Bullseye as a ghost was tied to Akiko and served as her mentor. Yeah.

36:05
leading her toward her most violent tendencies. But even then, Akiko fucking killed Lady Bullseye's ghost right after killing Karuka, so she just went off the deep end and was really beyond redemption as much as Hitmonkey would have wished otherwise. Yeah, I would agree. I just think it was interesting how she was sort of like Hitmonkey in a way. The fact that she had this ghost spirit who followed her.

36:31
And it was this somewhat peaceful character who became very violent. She just kind of went the other direction with it. Right. There's parallels there. The last character I want to talk about is Boon, who was the leader of the co-op and the main villain for the season, who was voiced by Nat Faxon. I did not recognize Nat Faxon's voice. It was so hilarious and how douchey it was. And I think it was pretty clear from the get go that Boon was just too douchey to stay good. It was probably pretty obvious that he was going to turn evil.

37:00
But Boon's genocidal twist was, I think, a welcome one. If only that it meant that you'd see him meet his end by the hands of Hitmonkey. Yeah, I'm like even more impressed now that you tell me that these characters were original because the show writers had to have a pretty great imagination for coming up with some of these characters like Boon and the other members of the Assassin's Co-op. Like freaking boy band super villains? Hilarious.

37:27
Totally out of left field, but adds unique depth to this character, right? Yeah. You know, despite Boon's extreme methods by the end, the way he described his dream of a perfect utopia, one without violence, full of plants and animals, like an Eden for the group, his philosophical words were enticing enough to put Hitmonkey under his spell for a time. You know, he made Hitmonkey question everything, from his friendships to the nature of humanity.

37:54
he manipulated him like some kind of charismatic cult leader, even without using his powers of telepathy and mind control. And in my book, that made him a fucking solid villain. Oh yeah, yeah, no question. He was a great villain. Some of the best villains are sympathetic or you understand the reasoning behind what they're doing. And Boon was definitely one of those characters. Like who doesn't want to get rid of evil in the world? Although you would think, you know, if he could control minds, if his power was telepathy,

38:23
Wouldn't he be a little bit more capable in getting the alderman to give him the relics? That was something I was wondering. Yeah, it's very true. All he really had to do was encounter them to control them. Like especially with the third eye guy, like why did they have a history of difficulty with him? Or with the shepherd or the call or any of them. Any one of them could have been mind controlled because none of them really had psychic powers. Or a defense against psychic powers. Right. That was just one of the very few plot holes I spotted throughout the

38:53
course of the show.

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39:46
But speaking of the plot, let's go ahead and get into our episode highlights. Episode 1 was called Return to Sender. In a flashback, Bryce descends into Hell, where he makes a deal with Mephisto to return as a ghost to assist Hitmonkey in sending souls to Hell. In the present, the duo travel to New York City and sign up with Eunice Jones, a mercenary agent who sets them up in Bryce's old apartment.

40:16
which she smuggled out of Tokyo after a demonic figure killed all of her fellow officers looking for it. They visit a rare weapons dealer who identifies the sword as an ancient mythical weapon and warns them not to wield it to avoid being possessed by it. While Hitmonkey is out on a hit, which turns out to be a setup, Haruka is chased by a demonic tiger through the city. She wields the sword in order to kill the cat, temporarily transforming into a supernatural

40:45
As they ponder what happened, Bryce observes his daughter Iris from afar. I have to say that I thought Keith David made an awesome Mephisto or devil. Whatever. I don't know if this was Mephisto. I like to think that it is, but Keith David was spot on with that voice. Oh, absolutely. Keith David is a fantastic, not just voice actor, but actor. And, you know, he has a singular voice that is perfection when it comes to characters like this, because it was really spooky.

41:12
He's also going to be voicing Darkseid in the Kite Man Hell Yeah television series. And I'm sure he's going to kill it. You know, it's going to be good. Did you realize that the tiger who was chasing Haruka was the weapons dealers cat that was transformed by the shepherd? I did not. That makes sense now. Episode two was Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Looking to learn who ordered the phony hit, Bryce, Hitmonkey and Haruka track down the vetter at a local library who directs them

41:41
to Charles Lehigh of the Aldermen before being killed by assassins that Haruka in turn kills with her sword. The group sneaks into an event at Lehigh's estate where his necklace charm recognizes Haruka's sword. He turns into a shrieking monster known as The Call, but is ripped in half by a mysterious young girl named Dot who steals the charm necklace. Hitmonkey takes Bryce to visit the restaurant Iris serves at, but she rejects anything to do with her dad.

42:08
When the pair return to the apartment, they find Haruka transformed and addicted to the sword's power. Meanwhile, at a secret meeting of the three remaining aldermen, the ogre vows to take care of Hitmonkey and Haruka. One of the very few plot holes was regarding the librarian better. I'm not sure why she died, why they killed her. I'm guessing that since Hitmonkey and Bryce survived the bomb attack from the first episode, it was likely that the aldermen knew.

42:36
that they would investigate the vetter, which is why they tried to kill her. Yeah, I think they were just tying up loose ends. It's possible that they were staked out at the library waiting for Hitmonkey to show up because we know that the reason the librarian set up the fake hit was because they tortured her and made her break her code. So I don't know if it's quite a plot hole. Yeah, I don't think it is. Episode 3 was called The Rope. The ogre, who is a big giant, snatches Haruka out of their apartment and Hitmonkey and Bryce chase him across the city.

43:06
A group known as the Assassin's Cooperative assists in rescuing Haruka as Hitmonkey goes inside the Giant's head to kill him before passing out. Hitmonkey wakes up in the co-op's lair where he meets its members, Boon, Slyke, Amara, Double Tap, and Dot. They explain to him how an ancient relic was divided into eight weapons wielded by the Aldermen to rule the world from the shadows.

43:30
They ask Hitmonkey to join their cause of obtaining and reforging the weapons to restore the relic to heal the world. Contemplating joining the co-op family, Hitmonkey tries to take Bryce to the restaurant to visit Iris, but they accidentally get her fired. Upset, Bryce makes another deal with Mephisto for a physical form, however it comes with a 48 hour time limit. Meanwhile, Akiko shows up in New York City as Lady Bullseye. I think this was my favorite episode.

43:58
I really, really liked the introduction of the Assassin's Co-op, but also the backstory of the aldermen. I thought that was really well done. Yeah. There was just a lot to like. The whole second deal that Bryce made with Mephisto you knew was going to end in tragedy and they totally set that up perfectly. It was just really well written. For sure. Yeah, and this episode had great action too. That fight against the ogre. Yes. That was really well done with cool ideas. The fact that they actually went into.

44:26
ogre's head and started shooting his brain from inside his body. That was pretty crazy. Yeah, it's the kind of action that I was really looking forward to with this season. Just seeing monkey swing through New York almost like Spider-Man. And yeah, this was definitely one of my favorite action scenes from the whole season. Episode four was called Never Too Late. Bryce visits Iris at her apartment to apologize for abandoning their family, but she rejects him.

44:50
Haruka traces the Alderman financials to a hedge fund managed by the third eye wielder, Yanis Kalamaris. She, Hitmonkey, and Bryce try to fight Yanis, but are unable to overcome his future sight, and they are saved by the co-op who chastises them for almost getting killed. Bryce reconnects with a former associate called Snail, who can slow time and give them a chance against the third eye. Meanwhile...

45:15
Akiko tries to find Hitmonkey through his old associates and kills one with the help of the original Lady Bullseye's ghost who was following her. Hitmonkey, Bryce, and Haruka catch up with the co-op at Yenis' private jet and with Snail's help they defeat him. Bryce visits Iris again to apologize and this time she gives him a chance. Meanwhile, in Hell, Mephisto foreshadows that his army is about to grow. Now is the snail an original character as well? Correct, yeah.

45:44
I liked the snail here. He was voiced by Jim Gaffigan. He had a pretty cool, if not gross power set where he gets slow time. But people who were in contact with his saliva were able to exist outside of the time distortion effect. Well, it wasn't his saliva. It was his mucus, his snot. Yeah, that's right. You're right. He was definitely hocking up loogies. He wasn't just spitting. Right. Yeah. I liked the snail. I thought the nicknames.

46:10
and the grab-assing between Bryce and him were pretty funny. Like Snail called Bryce taint because he's somewhere between a dick and an asshole. And then he like sack tap him, you know, and the Bryce would like call him like old chub and try to titty twist him. He's like, let me at those little pickles. It's like, what the fuck is going on here? They just had this hilarious relationship. Yeah, I thought he was going to reappear in the final episode. I was kind of sad that he didn't, but they also made really good use of him in this episode.

46:37
Yeah, it was cool to see Bryce taking on the third eye with that slow motion effect. It's rare that you see Bryce kick ass in this series, because usually that's left to Hitmonkey. But when you see Bryce be a badass, you remember exactly why he's a good mentor for Hitmonkey. Yeah, you remember that he is an accomplished assassin. Yeah. Episode 5 is called Akiko. In a flashback to Akiko's childhood, we see her family die in a fire.

47:04
She is placed in a boarding school by her uncle Shinji Yokohama, where she is bullied relentlessly and nearly drowned. She lashes out and is placed in a psychiatric ward before her uncle comes to raise her into a successful writer. In the present, Bryce gets Iris a job with Eunice as a murder crime scene cleaner, where she learns under another cleaner named Buddy. Hitmonkey bonds with the co-op and visits Eunice to quit as a mercenary but is ambushed by Eikiko, who falls off a building during their fight.

47:33
Hitmonkey takes her to the co-op for medical care, where Boon tells him that the Akiko he knew is gone, and that his brother Colt also succumbed to anger and killing. Unable to end Akiko's life, Hitmonkey sets her free. Meanwhile, the Shepard sends a mutated pigeon after the co-op. I totally thought Akiko initially died upon her fall. I was like, whoa, really? That's how they're going to wrap up the Lady Bullseye story? Obviously they didn't do it that way, but it was kind of foreshadowing her eventual death.

48:03
in the very last episode. Yeah, through the fall maybe. But what it really did was give Hitmonkey an opportunity to end her life before things got too severe. He was contemplating suffocating her with a pillow while she was recovering in the hospital bed at the co-op's lair. But he didn't do it. Like we all knew that he should have done it, but he just cared for her too much. And he ended up undoing her handcuffs so that she can leave when she wakes up. But it really turned out to be a big mistake.

48:32
Yeah, huge, which is one of the reasons why I think he decided to take responsibility in killing Akiko in the final episode in the way that he did. What did you think about Iris? I thought it was hilarious how she turned out to be really a chip off the old block, you know, getting into the whole mercenary community.

48:49
I thought the relationship that developed between her and Bryce felt pretty organic. It was fast, but it didn't feel too fast just because of how open and honest Bryce was with his feelings towards her right off the bat at the beginning of the season. And it was kind of funny to see that, you know, for however much she had hated her father, she ended up being more like him than she probably realized. And more than he wanted her to. Yeah. Yeah.

49:16
Absolutely. And I love by the end how they formed this bond between a father and daughter that felt real and felt pure in a way, and how good it was for both of them and how Bryce was even willing to sacrifice himself for his daughter, which is, you know, what any father should do. It was a truly redemptive arc for him. Yeah, like I maybe wanted to be annoyed by Iris at the start of the season, but the relationship between her and Bryce was just too good.

49:44
and she was pretty funny too. She was actually voiced by Kristen Milioti, who is going to be playing Carmine Falcone's daughter in the upcoming Penguin series. Oh really? Okay. I didn't know that. Episode 6 was called The Estate. The pigeon gives an invitation to Hitmonkey and the co-op to join the shepherd for dinner at his estate in the desert. As they travel there via jet, Iris and Eunice throw a retirement party for Buddy.

50:10
Suspecting a trap at the estate, Bryce volunteers to scout the situation and he learns at dinner with the Shepard that the alderman initially wanted to use the relics to heal the world just like the assassin's co-op, before shooting himself and passing his staff to his wife. She uses mutated scorpions and spiders to attack the co-op. During the fight, Haruka and Double Tap seek shelter in a cave where she realizes via his thermal vision goggles that he was the figure who shot up her precinct in Tokyo looking for the sword.

50:40
The Shepard mutates Hitmonkey into a giant gorilla, but with Boon's help, he overcomes his mental control and kills the Shepard, getting the last of the relics. Back at the co-op's lair, Haruka reveals to Bryce the group's sinister intentions and they steal Bonsai's master sword, escaping with Eunice to her vacation home in Montauk. What did you think of the reveal that Double Tap was really the monster-like figure that killed all of the police officers in Tokyo?

51:08
I thought it was a little bit misleading because in the flashback, the demonic figure was largely just walking menacingly toward Haruka as other mercenaries were doing all the shooting. So it means that Double Tap hired a hit squad to go after the sword with him. And from what we learn about the character later on, it seems more like Double Tap is not really the guy who's inclined to work with a lot of other gunmen. Right, exactly. Like for all the talk he was giving about the team only needing

51:36
one gunman and considering how skilled he was with all of his weapons, I thought that felt very out of character and very out of left field. Yeah, it was a good twist but the way they animated it and set it up wasn't as successful as it should have been. I haven't gotten your thoughts on Eunice yet. What did you think of Leslie Jones as Eunice? I loved Eunice. I love Leslie Jones in general. I think she is hilarious. I thought this was perfect casting for her. I thought all of her

52:05
It was just a lot of fun. I think she's a great character addition to Hit Monkey's cast of allies. Yeah, for sure. I thought Leslie Jones gave the best delivery. Like, I remember in this episode when she told Hit Monkey to get out of here with your clown ass friends, get into your clown ass car, and go to your clown convention. Because guess what? Your ass is a fucking clown. I died. She's so good at lines like that. Yeah, it's like Leslie Jones never plays characters other than Leslie Jones.

52:34
She's always playing herself, but it's just such a great character. Yeah. In this episode, they address the fact that they're bringing a monkey to a fight against a guy who can essentially control and mutate animals. But the fact that they address that idea and still do it makes no sense to me. Yeah, it's like you guys knew this was going to happen. So why did it happen? Right. That was a fight that they probably should have left Hitmonkey at home for. Or maybe Boon just figured he could control Hitmonkey.

53:02
But then again, that brings up the plot hole of why not just control the shepherd. Right. Exactly. Exactly. The scene with the shepherd shooting himself at the dinner table was fucking disturbing. Yes. And weird as hell. Very graphic, like the facial expression he made right before he shot himself in the head was creepy and scary. I thought his wife just looking on smiling, even creepier. Yeah, the whole relationship was weird.

53:29
Which is why it was appropriate that Bryce was like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah. Yeah. He was thinking what we were all thinking. Episode seven was called The Last Supper. Boone reads Hitmonkey's mind, who deduces where the sword is. The co-op then sends Hitmonkey to Montauk to get it back. Bryce, Haruka, Iris and Eunice fortify their vacation home to prepare it for battle and have what they believe to be their last supper. Hitmonkey arrives and the group tries to tell him of the co-op's intentions, but he doesn't believe them.

53:57
Bryce and Hitmonkey duke it out and Bryce admits that he used Hitmonkey's killing to get out of hell. Akiko and Lady Bullseye intrude on the scene, and though Haruka tries to reason with her old friend, she's forced to wield the sword again. Hitmonkey tries to shoot Akiko but can't bring himself to do it and Haruka abandons her sword, resulting in her own death by Akiko's hands. Lady Bullseye's ghost nearly drowns Bryce in the salty ocean, but the co-op arrives on the scene.

54:26
prompting Lady Bullseye and Akiko to flee. The co-op picks up the sword and Hitmonkey as Iris and Eunice pull Bryce out of the ocean. I gotta give a quick shout out to the state of Colorado in this episode because Iris makes a reference to Vale during supper and tells them that she wants to learn how to ski with rich people. And they're like, oh yeah, that's some good skiing up there. It is. And it's really good skiing. As someone who has skied Vale, I appreciated that. I really liked this episode.

54:55
This is another one of my favorite episodes. I just loved the drama of it, you know, with the last supper where they're eating pancakes and where Bryce and Hentmonkey are brawling out in the rain. And you understand where both of them are coming from. It was just, again, a well-written episode. Emotionally devastating episode. I think this was my favorite episode out of all of them, for sure. Let's move on to episode eight, which was called Mindmall.

55:21
The co-op begins the reforging process as Boon admits to Hitmonkey that they plan on ending global violence by ending global life. They reveal themselves to be working with Mephisto, who resurrected Bryce to nudge him and Hitmonkey to the Alderman and the co-op in his scheme to end humanity and build his Hell army. Slyke pulls Hitmonkey into his mind while Bryce, Eunice, and Iris mourn Haruka back in Montauk. Akiko spies on them from afar and kills Lady Pulsai's ghost by using their tether to pull her into the salty ocean.

55:51
Back at the apartment, Dot warns Bryce, Iris, and Eunice about the co-op's real plans before returning to their lair and being pulled into Slyke's mind. Secretly harboring Bryce's ghost, Dot helps rescue Hitmonkey from his chains and directs them on how to escape Slyke's mind. While Dot is able to get out, Slyke and Boone's brother Colt is revealed to be inside his mind too and destroys the exit.

56:15
As Hitmonkey and Bryce flee into Slyke's subconscious, Colt learns that he was mind controlled by Boon into agreeing to be pulled into his brother's mind. Slyke enters his own mind to explain his reasoning to his brother, but Colt kills him, giving Hitmonkey and Bryce enough time to escape before Slyke's mind is eradicated. Witnessing the tragedy of brothers turning on each other, Bryce and Hitmonkey make amends, just as the co-op prepares to use the power of the Forged Relic in Times Square.

56:43
This is another fantastic episode. This is just like a series of great episodes. I really liked the mind mall setting that had a very cool eighties retro vibe, very vibrant and creepy. It kind of reminded me of the original Suspiria film, although that was made in the seventies, but the killer racer that was chasing him through the mall, I think that was pulled from an eighties movie called The Wraith, from what I could tell. Really interesting. It was all just very surreal and kind of incorporated dream logic in this really cool way.

57:12
Now, I just remembered, are you sure all of the characters from the co-op were original? Because I remember you having an X-Men comic with a mutant villain who was also able to warp beings into his mind. Yeah, you're talking about the X-Men 394 issue, which has Wolverine and Jean Grey kissing on the cover. And in it, they get pulled into this mutant's mind and his name was Warp Savant.

57:41
And while they have the same power set, he's not Slyke. So it's likely that Slyke was influenced by Warp Savant. Although Warp Savant only made an appearance in one issue. Are you serious? He hasn't appeared since? OK, that's dumb. OK. But it's interesting that you remembered that pretty good memory there. I just remember you getting really pissed off because I got chocolate on that comic cover and you've probably never forgiven me for that. You dumbass. I completely forgot about that, too.

58:10
Oh, I reminded you. Out of everyone in the co-op, who would you say was your favorite? Dot because she was the only one that was good. But like we didn't get really any of her backstory either. Well, we didn't really get much of any of the co-op's backstories except for Boon. Well, we got the statue lady. I forgot her name. Amara. Yeah, Amara. I just saw apparently she was voiced by Stephanie Beatrice. So she has the same voice as Mirabelle from Encanto. Right. Yeah, it's interesting comparing her voice as that Disney character and then saying

58:40
Get fucked, Bryce. You know. But no, we never got more than a few sentences of backstory for any of the co-op members except for Boon. I don't know why Amara was my favorite. I think I just really liked her power set. But yeah, Dot was great too. I loved how strong she was. Like that was her power, right? Just like super strength and durability. It's a great power set for a creepy little girl because you wouldn't expect it. Right. Episode nine was called the concrete jungle.

59:05
Boon unleashes the relic on New York City, transforming the environment and turning people into trees. Bryce, Eunice, Iris, Dot, and Hitmonkey call in all of Eunice's mercenary contacts to join their fight. They plan to use Eunice's bomb to blow up the relic, with Bryce's team planting the bomb in the subway tunnels under Times Square, and Monkey's team triggering the remote detonator. Both groups get attacked by the co-op, with Hitmonkey weakened after being shot multiple times by double tap.

59:32
and Bryce gets turned to marble by Amara. However, Hitmonkey ricochets shoots double tap, and Bryce phases out of his stone form to trap her on the subway car. Boon mind controls Dot to attack Hitmonkey, but he survives long enough for Bryce's bomb to get there, and he blows up Boon and the relic. However, Boon survives as a plant monster with pieces of the relic embedded in him. I love at the start of the episode Hitmonkey's speech to the other mercenaries.

01:00:00
He's like, I know we all probably need therapy, but we could do this together. We're a family. And his screech at the end when he's like, now who's with me? It just crickets. Nobody says anything. But then like somebody starts to slow clap and then all of a sudden everybody gets super excited and they start shooting their guns in the air and even hit monkey shooting his gun in the air. It was hilarious. Yeah. And especially when you find out that they're shooting accidentally hit the bomb in the coffee table. It's like, of course.

01:00:27
The one thing that I hated about these last two episodes was how like at certain points the main characters would get covered in vines but somehow weren't ripped apart to pieces or transformed into plants just like everyone else was. It was like if you were a main character on the show you had plot armor basically. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty convenient but I don't know. It's not like they didn't meet cruel fates later on. I loved the stakes of this season as a whole. Like they were way bigger than season one.

01:00:56
But the stakes kind of get ruined once you realize that the main characters aren't susceptible to the bad guy's final plan. That's not to say that there weren't casualties, because of course you have Officer Haruka's death and even Hitmonkey dies by the end of the show, but I feel like Iris and Eunice should have been turned into plant creatures. It's really hard to agree with the whole plot armor thing considering how everything goes down at the end.

01:01:21
sure Bryce lives at the end, but he's also trapped in a hell of his own making, as it were, because he's without Hitmucky. Or at least the one that he knows. As far as Eunice and Iris, I'm totally fine with them having plot armor. You know, after surviving the attack in Montauk, you know, they had already gone through a lot. It's fine. Plus I want to see them continue on into Season 3.

01:01:49
drive to help rescue Bryce, Hitmonkey, and Dot from the Boon monster. While fleeing in their van, Iris gets the idea to use Buddy's Bodyburner to destroy Boon, but the monster crashes the vehicle. The group fights Boon and are overpowered, but they buy enough time for Iris to use Buddy's Bodyburner, which is only partially effective. Bryce and Hitmonkey yank the relic shards from the monster's body.

01:02:12
which Boon uses to transport them across time to witness humanity's violence throughout history, from feudal Japan to World War I. They teleport to an animal testing facility in the past where Hitmucky sees his younger self get rescued from a cage where he and his parents were being experimented on. Bryce pulls out the last shard, returning them home and fully killing Boon. As Bryce runs out of time on his corporeal form and says goodbye to Iris,

01:02:39
Akiko returns and tries to shoot Iris, forcing Bryce to take the bullets. Hitmonkey stops Akiko by tackling her off the Brooklyn Bridge, an act that kills them both. Mephisto claims Hitmonkey's soul as payment for Bryce's deals, and Bryce returns to life. As Bryce mourns, he sees Hitmonkey's ghost, who is now tethered to him. This was a fantastic final episode. I really love how it began with Steve the Cleaver.

01:03:07
I don't even know who that dude was and neither did anybody else. I loved how Steve died trying to be heroic to buy the group sometime. It was just fucking decimated. He's like, so good. No, go on without me. And Bryce was like, yeah, OK, fine. Closes the door. Yeah, no, give a shit. The ending was so bittersweet with this like somber music playing and Bryce just kind of like staring off playing with some salt in his hand, you know, thinking about everything that happened. And he glances over and there's just

01:03:37
this random monkey ghost staring at him from across the street and he walks over to him and is like, what took you so long? And that's how the season ended. And I thought it was so poetic considering both of the characters' journeys, all that they had been through and how the script was kind of flipped at the very end. The best thing I can say about this season is that I'm really, really wanting more of this story. Yeah, absolutely. And we're-

01:04:01
really stuck with me at the end too was how Hitmonkey was in a ghost form, but he wasn't like his old self. Like, he didn't have any of his character. He was like a shell of what he was. So it's not like they could reunite in some kind of satisfying way. It wasn't satisfying. It was bittersweet, it was heartfelt, and it absolutely calls for a season three. That brings us to the end of this review. Overall...

01:04:27
The season mixed fun, brutal action with emotionally tragic moments, and the silly high-concept premise has proven itself as Marvel's darkest and most challenging project. I'm giving the show 4.5 stars out of 5, a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah, I think that's totally appropriate. I personally love me a good tragedy. And this is a tragedy, I would say, in the true sense of the word.

01:04:54
and that comedies have happy endings and tragedies have somewhat sad endings. The fact that this tragedy was also able to make me laugh for a majority of the season is also a testament to just how well-written it was. I do think it was better than season one, which we gave four stars. So yeah, I would agree with that rating. Yeah, season two just hit harder, both emotionally, viscerally, with the violence. Animation was top notch. Animation-wise. Really good animation, yeah.

01:05:24
And the show is just cool. Like it is so cool. Like I'm trying to think of anything as cool as this show. Himaki has a vibe to him. You know, it's hard to put into words the idea of cool, but you could definitely feel it when watching the show. For sure. They knew what the tone was and I think they nailed it. So kudos to the show runners. But that does it for this review. AJ9K, help close this out. Thanks for listening to Dynamic duel. Visit the show's website at dynamicduel.com.

01:05:53
and follow us on Instagram at Dynamic Duel Podcast. You can support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com slash Dynamic Duel and joining a tier that works for you or by rating and reviewing Dynamic Duel on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, or on our website. Don't forget to listen to the other shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network, including Max Destruction, Senjo World, and Console Combat. Our next episode is going to be another review.

01:06:21
but it's the last one of the group before we get back to the duels guys. We're going to be reviewing Watchmen Chapter one, which hopefully the animation is good because it's going to be really hard going into that coming off of Hit Monkey, just with how expressive and well done the animation was. I have a feeling it's not going to be as good and I know we already know the Watchmen story, so I'm not sure how satisfying watching this will be, but we'll let you guys know next week.

01:06:49
But that does it for this episode, we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers Ken Johnson, John Storosky, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Balcom, Miggy Mathen-Geehan, Brandon Estregard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Austin Wazilowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, Gil Camacho, Adam Spies, Andrew Shunk, Dean Maleski, Devin Davis, Joseph Kersting, and Josh Leiner for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up, up, and away, true believers. This shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.