TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews Naomi Episode 6: Homecoming

The more I watch Naomi, the more I see that they’re trying hard to make this work like other Arrowverse shows, but they’re holding themselves back in various ways. “Homecoming” was a great episode, but it did only a little better in furthering things, all the while still falling into the same pitfalls.

The biggest pitfall being the mystery around…well…everything. It was fine in the first few episodes to cloak everything in mystery and make us wonder the truth, but at this point, it’s honestly becoming a chore to be constantly reminded that you shouldn’t “believe everything you think”. The ending of this episode is proof of that. Zumbado since episode one has been this “dark mysterious figure” and we keep hearing things about how evil he is, and yet we don’t get anything more than that.

And then, at the end of the episode, he says Naomi and says, “I should’ve told you the truth”. If that was the case…why didn’t you say it? And it doesn’t help that a similar line was used after Naomi’s parents revealed that they knew all along who she was. Futhermore, if it’s a case of Zumbado isn’t really a bad guy, then that invalidates a lot that’s happened before, as well as further diverging from the lore of the comics (which again, to be fair, isn’t a lot to go on) where he was emphatically evil.

It also wasn’t that good that a potential new “ally” was revealed to be evil in minutes flat. The betrayal would’ve been more meaningful if it had been built up over a few episodes, and the fact that this also leads to more questions than answers…is frustrating. Not the least of which is that we were told by many people, including the Army, that people were JUST finding out that this Earth was full of powered people and aliens. But according to Captain Comet via the bar, Dee via his story about how he came to the town, and Dr. Belle, a lot of people had been in contact with aliens and powered people. So…how is it not common knowledge? Especially since Superman is apparently real in this world? It doesn’t add up.

Another thing that doesn’t add up was the plot between Nathan and Anthony. Anthony being mad about not being with Naomi was one thing, but him accusing Nathan was dumb because if he DID do it…why did he stick around to get caught? And while I was all for them bonding (and that line by Nathan about people “erasing his history” was very well-handled), it didn’t go anywhere. All we got a set of “you don’t know me” lines and then when they worked together to expose that one girl (name escapes me, sorry) they suddenly backed off because…she didn’t win the contest? It was a very awkward ending to a very awkward plot.

Also, does anyone know where Lordis is?

To be clear, there was some good parts, including Naomi learning about the Multiverse (something that hopefully is built upon), as well as her finding her spaceship that was hidden in the mill) Dee’s side story was good, and there were some scenes with Zumbado that was interesting. Like his warning to the parents (which went…nowhere…). Also, Annabelle is a treasure that needs to be protected at all costs. You heard me!

In the end, “Homecoming” was an episode that continued the trend of barely inching forward in order to further add to the mysteries of everything. As we saw with Lost…that doesn’t work if you don’t start answering things soon. Next episode might be that…but then again…maybe not.

3/5