There’s a lot I could talk about in this episode, but what I really want to dig into is that AA meeting. We spent a little bit of time last season tearing apart what kind of affect Anika’s actions might have had on the people around her. Going through Sean and Heather’s story, slowly understanding where Heather’s anti-powered people standpoint comes from, and where Sean’s big need for understanding comes from. But, as we saw, the “heroes” we are following this season are in some ways also culpable for what Anika has always been blamed for.
The AA meeting is a (painful) way to bring Aiden back down to earth and show him how his actions not only affect other people, but how they affect people who are going through very similar issues as he personally is. Bringing in Jake, even just for this short bit of an episode, was a treat in a fun way. Nate, who voices Jake, has been my improv coach for a while, and it was so fun to see him work in a serious way. Not only that, but for this scene, we kept Nate and Michael in the booth together. Those small whimpers/gasps/nonono’s from Aiden that you hear weren’t scripted, but came out of Michael completely organically as Nate worked through Jake’s AA speech.
I loved having a chance to explore something we don’t do much of in this show: people without powers, who don’t know anyone with powers, and have no desire for powers themselves. What does this world look like for them? What does it mean when sharing in your AA meeting includes talking about people who can fly, or blow things up with their minds, or go invisible? As powers become common knowledge, the world that was once just like the one we (the listeners) live in becomes anything but ordinary. And maybe that’s not so great for the people who aren’t super.