“Forget Safety, Be Notorious” starts up immediately after the events of episode three. With the Fantastic Four + One having taken advantage of the widespread Bronx blackout, by looting their way to getting new DJ equipment, they now find themselves hot on the heels of a local musician stealing their music from live performances. Meanwhile, Mylene (Herizen F. Guardiola) has no choice but to deal with the hassle of her producer being nothing but a washed up, heroin addicted loser.
One of this show’s greatest strengths thus far is how well it balances each individual’s stories while also presenting enough drama and character development to keep things engaging. And while there are brief moments for our characters to continue growing in episode four, there just isn’t enough stakes or an engaging enough plot to make them the most memorable. Which is saying something, considering that fact that following a music thief should be at least a fun one. But it’s not. For some odd reason, another subplot is added in to an already heavily stuffed series that surrounds Jaden Smith’s character, Dizzee, meeting another local graffiti artist. It adds absolutely nothing worthwhile or memorable, and all it ends up doing is killing an unnecessary amount of screen time that should be dedicated to other narratives. However, even our main characters don’t seem to have much of a grasp as to what they should be doing in this episode’s narrative. It’s just like they’re going through the motions and doing nothing progressive for themselves. The gang has a fight, Zeke (Justice Smith) is trying to better himself but the street life keeps dragging him back in, it’s just more or less what we’ve been seeing the last couple episodes. How about something different?
The only real stand out moment from “Forget Safety, Be Notorious” is Mylene’s story, where she has to confront her coked up producer alongside friends to present a record to her uncle. It’s actually one of the few times we see any real story given to Mylene’s friends, and they manage to provide some lightheartedly fun, yet equally dark moments to the otherwise uneventful episode. Their story is where we see the most stakes happen in terms of the highs and lows of Mylene’s career, and that’s what sticks out the strongest out of everything here. Sure, it doesn’t ultimately add much that hasn’t already been drilled into our brains nonstop, but it still brings some nicely diverse moments to an otherwise fest of episode fluff.
Overall, episode four is more or less harmless, but it’s definitely the season’s most middling adventure thus far. This episode tries way too hard to throw as much as it can at the wall and see what sticks. The result, however is that very little actually works to make this particular episode particularly memorable. Sure, it shouldn’t affect your binge-watching of the season at all, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll remember much of anything to make this chapter’s events stand out.
Rating: 5/10
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