Some elements of comic-book storytelling are so absurd and, well, cartoonish that they just don’t translate to the big screen. Such is why there was a major push in the 2000s — from the Bryan Singer X-Men movies through to the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, the Snyderverse, and much of the MCU — to make superhero movies feel gritty and credible; as credible, at least, as superhero movies can be. The gaudy designs of fan-favorite heroes were toned down, their costumes shaded in muted tones. Case in point: Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine didn’t wear his famously angular comic-accurate mask until this year’s Deadpool threequel — an ugly half-CGI thing, which, to be fair, served as object proof that a lot of comic stuff just looks stupid in live-action.
But you know what would look really, really fucking stupid, especially blown up to the size of Imax? An invisible jackhammer, such is one of the Über-special powers of Tecto — who, it is increasingly clear, is one of those C-tier guys who get movies only after the main heroes have been exhausted. The second episode of The Franchise, written by The Thick of It and Veep veteran Tony Roche and directed by Liza Johnson, predominantly focuses on the testy shooting of the scene in which Tecto will invisibly jack his invisible jackhammer for the first time. Adam, who plays the titular superhero, struggles with it conceptually: Would Tecto, for example, be able to see the invisible jackhammer? He also fears that he will look, well, really fucking stupid, a concern only amplified by his ever-catty co-star Peter, whose episode is spent whinging about his place on the call sheet, causing mischief and dropping acerbic barbs.
For the guys below the line — not least poor Daniel, who spends his drive to work mainlining his vape while listening to a woefully inadequate meditation tape — there’s existential terror in the air apropos of the arrival of new producer Anita at the end of episode one. She skipped out on the chance to work with Sofia Coppola for Tecto, dammit, and is hell-bent on making her mark, shaking up the sluggish production, herself under pressure from the Maximum Studios higher-ups, which means the threat of firings. Aya Cash gets to really sink her teeth into the role in this episode, playing Anita with a veneer of menacing confidence while infrequently betraying — through a subtle look of panic in her eyes or full-on breakdowns that she turns on and off like a light switch — that she is, really, anything but menacing (or confident).
She goes about establishing her authority by scheduling an emergency meeting first, which is canceled as soon as the crew arrives. It sets in motion a wave of panic: Eric frets that his artistic vision will be further compromised, or worse, that he will be “stripped and flogged†in front of his staff (an indignity that is reserved for Daniel later in the episode), while Adam fears he will be “cut out†like a tumor and replaced with Kit Harington. It’s at least a kick up the arse for everyone to just get on with the day’s shoot and the silliness with the invisible jackhammer, which appears on set as something like a bright-green pogo stick. The scene requires a big stunt for Adam and Peter to be hoisted into the air at “warp speed,†at which they have three attempts before Peter’s spine gives in, per his contract. Billy Magnussen shines here, treating the stick/jackhammer like a very phallic extension of Adam’s manhood.
It’s Dag’s second day on set, and she’s already disillusioned. “What if this isn’t a dream factory,†she poses to Daniel. “What if it’s an abattoir, and we’ve all got blood on our hands, and fatty tissue on our faces, and we’re sat here eating sandwiches …†A pressurized Daniel shuts her down — and promptly apologizes for being a twat — but knows there’s a lot of truth to what she’s saying: I mean, come on, an invisible jackhammer? He’s inspired to pluck up the courage and speak to Anita about Eric’s lost mossmen, who were cut for budgetary reasons, leaving him with a handful of extras that must be digitally duplicated for the jackhammer scene. We’re also given a little backstory as to how the two of them know each other: They were fucking for six months before Anita began a sexual relationship with an unnamed Australian actor. So you’d forgive Daniel for holding a little bit of a grudge.
Anita doesn’t return the mossmen, but she does recruit Daniel for that aforementioned flogging in the outdoor food court, where he is used as a very public scapegoat for the woes of the production so far. (That joke about scooping elephant shit from the first episode comes to mind.) It at least enables the shoot to continue, and Daniel quickly goes about reasserting his own authority on set as a career-saving performance of force for Anita. Privately, Daniel and Anita realize that the whole invisible-jackhammer thing blows — it was shit in the comics, Daniel says, and it’s especially shit on-camera. Anita says she can get Shane, whose presence continues to be embodied on set by buzzy surrogate Bryson, on a direct line to convince him to cut it. Only he doesn’t return the call, quickly undermining the sense of power she thought she had. To make matters worse, Maximum Studios has just canceled another one of the lower-rung movies, The Sister Squad. “It’s like when you have a beautiful dog, and you have to smash its head in with a hammer,†Pat says.
So now it’s not just Daniel who is a ball of super-anxiety; Anita, too, is terrified that Tecto will suffer the same fate as its (no doubt cloyingly faux feminist, going by that title) franchise sibling. With that, the stakes are set for the season to come: not only are Daniel & Co. being worked to the bone, but they’re now doing so for a movie that might not see the light of day. But those who care about the final product, and want to enact change around the clearly batshit creative decisions that take place, are stymied by red tape and fear. And so the moral of the episode is similar to that of the opener: Superhero movies are hell, everyone is chronically underappreciated, and you’d need a screw loose to want to work on one. I, for one, am shocked.
Post-Credits Scenes
• Another great line for Peter, delivered with tremendous bile by Richard E. Grant, after Adam’s sneeze fucks up the shot: “It’s like he’s allergic to acting.â€
• Enormously enjoyed the time Daniel Brühl spent with Eric’s luxuriating Christopher “Chris†Nolan name-drop. What would Nolan’s Tecto look like?
• Daniel did not laugh when he told Dag that the third AD before her killed himself. Maybe that VFX guy will be next.