Best Musical Numbers
How much do I love that four years running, I can always do this category, and it’s always competitive. Although the shortlist got shorter with Legends of Tomorrow out of the running until next year. Stupid COVID delays. Anyhoo, some comic book characters sang their hearts out this year, and these ones did it best.
(Umbrella Academy has some excellent and surprising needle-drops but not proper musical numbers this year.)
Bronze: Pure Imagination, Doom Patrol, “Sex Patrol”
Friend to the Doom Patrol Danny the Street suffered an injury at the end of season one, and was reduced to Danny the Brick…and now the brick is broken. In an attempt to help Danny heal, the misfits and outcasts who once lived on him (aka the Dannyzens) arrive at Doom Manor for a big party. Parties sustained Danny when they were a street, as the gold medallist from two years back attests. Dorothy, the possibly all-powerful and slightly immortal daughter of the Chief, kicks things off with a rendition of Pure Imagination, and it’s pretty adorable.
Honestly this whole scene isn’t even in the top three weirdest things that happened that week, I do love this show.
Silver: Basically all of it, Lucifer, “Bloody Celestial Karaoke Jam”
When God comes to Earth, he decides to spend some time with estranged son Lucifer by observing him at work. But things get a little whimsical when God starts causing everyone to break into song and dance numbers that only Lucifer can recall happening. It’s a jukebox musical, which aren’t the best kind of musical episodes, but this cast clearly loves a good dance number and are putting their fulls backs into each song, whether it’s Ella and Maze mashing up “Bad to the Bone” and “No Scrubs,” Dan singing out his fears about Hell, special guest Debbie Gibson (!) dueting the Police with Lucifer, Amenadiel appearing just in time to do the rap breakdown on “Just the Two of Us,” or Lucifer and God’s incredibly emotional rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream,” it makes for a fun yet moving episode.
Better than “Duet” from The Flash, not quite “Once More With Feeling” from Buffy or “Brigadoom,” the Lexx episode with the haunted stage musical about the fall of the Brunnen-G, I promise that seemingly random collection of syllables makes sense.
Gold: “Agatha All Along,” WandaVision, “Breaking the Fourth Wall”
What better way to reveal the secret sinister force that’s been hiding in plain sight for the whole season than through a 50s/60s style sitcom intro? I can think of none, none at all. “Agatha All Along” brought back the sitcom whimsey of the first third of WandaVision right before things got very real in the final two episodes, filling in some blanks on what had been happening in a unique fashion. Also it’s catchy as all get out.
Next time, calls get tougher and the honourable mentions get longer as I’m forced to pare some excellent characters down to three finalists.