"Spykecam"
Writers: Christy Marx & Randy Littlejohn
Director: Frank Paur
Original Air Date: February 10, 2001
Synopsis/Review: At the beginning
of this episode, there's a (very) brief scene where we see Sabretooth breaking
into a non-guarded water tower and climbing up it. It lasts, like, 5 seconds,
though, and then we're teleported to Bayville High, at the end of one of
Evan's classes. His teacher hands back Evan's report, and Evan apparently
got a D-. It turns out that he was supposed to do a report on the "Star
Wars" defense system, but he instead did it on the movie. (As if we need
any more proof that Evan's stupid.) Evan is pretty worried about this-
he doesn't want Xavier to ground him or anything, I suppose- so he asks
the teacher if he could do an extra credit assignment. The teacher, being
the ludicrously nice guy that he is, decides to forgive Evan for being
stupid and instead gives him an incredibly easy and relatively fun assignment.
Evan is assigned to make a video of stuff that's important to him, as part
of a "current events" assignment. I guess the teacher reeeally feels sorry
for him or something, since that's kinda stretching the topic a bit, don't
ya think? Anyway, Evan gratefully accepts, and is handed a digicam, which
he treats as if it's the Holy Grail or something. He goes back out into
the hallway, looking it over, and looks out a window to test its zoom function.
(It's apparently an amazingly good zoom function, since Spyke manages to
focus in on Logan driving into the Institute, which looks, like, at least
3 miles away.) He's grabbed suddenly by a blue, two fingered hand and pulled
towards the window. Evan's initially freaked out until he realizes it's
Nightcrawler. Apparently, Kurt's holowatch is malfunctioning, and he needs
to get back to the Institute- he wants Evan to tape his remaining class
so he doesn't miss anything. To which, of course, Evan agrees.
We zoom out and find
Sabretooth, via binoculars, watching the two from the top of the water
tower. He sees Kurt, and knows that these are the Mutants he's looking
for...
Later on, we see Rogue
and Kitty walking down the hall, arguing over something unimportant (they
do NOT get along). Evan comes down the hall from the other way, sees them,
mumbles something about "cool, character conflict", and starts filming
them while "hiding" behind his locker door. Kitty bumps into some guy,
and they both drop their books. As she apologizes to him (she's obviously
quite a bit taken with the guy she bumped into), the guy asks if she's
going to be trying out for the school play. He's the male lead, and it's
called something amazingly stupid along the lines of "Dracula: the Rock
Musical". Yes, stupid even for a public school play, even though it's apparently
real. Kitty, wanting to impress the guy, laughs annoyingly (although this,
thankfully, starts to taper off after this episode) and says that she'll
definitely try out. Whats-his-name walks away, and Rogue just comments
on how pathetic Kitty was (which she really was). Kitty mindlessly retorts
that at least she has a hope of getting cast. Of course, this being DRACULA,
it's probably the other way around for the two girls, and Rogue tells her
this. And Rogue says that she's gonna try out for the play too. And then
they finally notice Evan filming them, and they both get really mad at
the Annoying One and tell him to go away. So he does, after saying the
stupid "It's cool, it's an assignment" excuse.
Later, after school,
Evan tries to film himself skating, bragging to the camera about how cool
he is and ignoring anyone who's in his way. Gee, what a hero... Anyway,
he's skating down the street for a while, with Sabretooth following him
by jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Sabretooth suddenly jumps onto Spyke
(pushing Evan's head down so he can't see who's "attacking" him) and grabs
Evan's digicam, pushing Evan into a nearby alley, skateboard and all. Heheh.
Sabretooth quickly rewinds Evan's tape
and finds the earlier recording of Logan entering the Xavier Institute,
and smirks.
Evan comes out a few
seconds later, really ticked off at whoever jumped him. He finds the digicam
just lying in the middle of the sidewalk, apparently undamaged. A bit confused,
Evan decides to go pick up the digicam and go on his way home.
Only he's stopped for
a bit by Toad, in what is pretty much Toad's only lame part in the ENTIRE
series. Toad said that he "heard" about Evan making a movie, and Toad wants
in. (What, so someone making a stupid amateur video is a big-time event,
or something. Yeah, RIGHT.) Toad then proceeds to do a bunch of jumps and
stuff to impress Evan, which of course, doesn't work, and Evan brushes
him off and goes back home. Sabretooth discreetly follows.
The next morning, Evan's
sleeping in his room when his alarm goes off. Which he has to hit three
times to turn the darn thing off, teehee. Storm comes in and tells him
it's time for breakfast, before noticing the digicam on Spyke's shelf.
She asks him what this is for, and Evan tells her about the assignment
he has to do. She tells him to let her take a look at it before he turns
it in, for obvious reasons- she doesn't want him recording any of the Institute's
secrets or anything. Which, at this point, one thinks that even Evan's
not stupid enough to do...
What follows soon after
is a short, funny scene in which Spyke secretly records Jean trying to
pick out what clothes she wants to wear for the day. ("The red? No... not
the red." Hmmm.. maybe the pink, Jean, WHAT YOU ALWAYS WEAR! Ahem.) She
then notices Peeping Tom Spyke, and kicks him out of her room in a huff.
Yeah, take that, brat boy. Heheh.
Spyke, desperate for
something to film, soon finds Wolverine and Scott doing a training session
in the yard. They're running down a pathway, avoiding spinning sawblades
and all that. (Doesn't Xavier ever get concerned that his students might
get KILLED doing stuff like this? Hmm, I suppose not.) In what is pretty
much the stupidest thing Spyke ever does, he proceeds to film- yes, that's
right, FILM- Logan and Scott going through the uber-secret run, with their
costumes on and everything. Way to go, Spyke! Yeah, turn in that super-secret
footage to your teacher! See where that gets ya! Anyway, during filming,
Spyke doesn't manage to see an incoming sawblade until it's almost too
late. Wolverine, just now noticing Evan following him, manages to push
Spyke over at the last minute and deflect the incoming sawblades. Wolverine,
of course, is furious with Spyke over the whole thing, and erases the footage
Spyke just recently shot. Still mad, Wolverine goes over the rest of the
footage Spyke shot, just in case Evan shot something ELSE he wasn't supposed
to. Wolverine then finds a recorded message- from Sabretooth! During the
short recording, Sabretooth "thanks" Evan for showing him where Logan is.
Logan is outraged/terrified at what Evan has done, when all of a sudden,
the alarms go off around the Institute. Gee, I wonder who that could be?
Wolverine, Cyclops, and Spyke head around to the front gate, where they
find Sabretooth tearing down the gate and the initial defense systems...
The other X-Men have
finally all suited up and head out to the front gate, finding Wolverine
and Sabretooth already embrawled in a battle. Wolverine insists that HE
deal with this, but Storm refuses- the Institute is not the place for his
private battles. All together, the X-Men completely kick Sabretooth's butt.
Frustrated with being attacked repeatedly, Sabretooth runs away. Wolverine
runs after him, but Sabretooth manages to lose the X-Man.
Later, in the "Cerebro
Room/Library", Xavier and Logan are having a discussion with one another.
They're talking to each other about Sabretooth's attack, obviously. Logan
knows Sabretooth, and he knows that the guy is going to want to get him
alone and out in the open- and to do that, Sabretooth's going to need a
hostage. So, this means that all of the students are in danger. Spyke,
being the nosy person that he is in this episode, has been listening in
to the discussion, and silently leaves. Of course, instead of actually
taking the blame like he should, he pretty much blames the digicam. Gee,
THAT'S logical. But, he gets a plan on how to fix the mess... He finds
Rogue and Kitty walking down the hallway, arguing over who gets to listen
to the play's soundtrack so that they can practice for it. Spyke manages
the "break up" the argument with a solution. He doesn't explain it completely,
but mentions that they need to go out to the park with his digicam in order
to do it. Curious, Rogue and Kitty follow him out.
Soon afterwards, we
see Scott about to head out for something to eat when Wolverine stops him-
no one is to leave the Institute until he deals with Sabretooth. Scott
mentions that Kitty, Evan, and Rogue already took off for the park a little
while back. Wolverine growls and takes off after the trio.
Later, at the park,
we see Evan setting up his digicam. He's apparently going to film Rogue
and Kitty's "audition" for the play (i.e., their dancing to the music)
while at the same time filming them for his "project". So, after a little
funny bit involving Rogue "stealing" Kitty's dancing moves, they start
dancing for a bit. That is, until Sabretooth roars in and crashes the party.
He manages to knock Spyke out (who apparently "lured" Sabretooth out to
deal with him his own way- smart move, Spyke. You can take on a seven-foot
Mutant. Yeah.) and also smacks Kitty into unconscious after catching her
by surprise as well. He's about to do the same to Rogue when Wolverine
comes barging in and starts to fight Sabretooth on his own. During the
fight, Rogue manages to touch Sabretooth, knocking the Mutant out and absorbing
his powers. Rogue then proceeds to become a she-wolf.. something. Heheh,
she looks funny though with fur everywhere. "Aw, and I just shaved mah
legs last night!" Heheheh. Wolverine then reprimands Rogue as well as the
still-recovering Spyke and Shadowcat. You bad kids, you're grounded until...
until... Rogue gets a haircut. Heh. Spyke asks what Wolverine's planning
to do with Sabretooth....
The next scene shows
the Blackbird dumping Sabretooth somewhere in the arctic and rocketing
away. Sabretooth then wakes up, apparently only half aware of his surroundings.
He can't remember a thing about what happened in the last couple days,
thanks to the blow to his head... (Gee, how lucky...) Sabretooth, of course,
shows up a few episodes later, so I assume he just walked out of the arctic
or something. Tough guy.
Anyway, the episode
then ends with a play of Evan's "movie". It basically just gives a brief
description of the other people at the Xavier Institute from Spyke's view,
and how much they mean to him and all that. Thankfully, anything dealing
with the "X-Men" part of the Institute didn't make it to the final cut
of Evan's video. Whew. It's kinda cute/corny, but doesn't really tell us
anything more than we need to know. Oh, and it turns out both Rogue and
Kitty got supporting rolls in the Dracula play. And yes, it was indeed
a stupid play.
Last Words: Although the battle scenes in this episode were pretty good, and there were a few genuinely funny parts, for the most part, this episode wasn't that great. It made Spyke even more ridiculously stupid than he normally is, and made Kitty a rather annoying character as well. Of course, on Spyke's part, I think it was meant to be that way. And there was a bit too much "cool" lingo used in this episode for my liking as well, seeing how Spyke was the main character focused on. Luckily, both characters improve vastly by the end of the season, though.
Overall Rating: 5/10 Average