S01E19 "The Sinister Six"

Characters: Peter Parker/Spider-Man; Dr. Otto Octavius; Shocker; The Rhino; The Vulture; Spencer Smythe; The Scorpion; Max Modell; Aunt May; Harry Osborn; AIM scientist; Mendel Stromm

Teaser
Time: Night. The scene: The Raft, a super-prison for super-villains. Guards react and shields start to go up as the ground and facility shake. Outside, from on high, DR. OTTO OCTAVIUS directs SHOCKER to increase the power of his vibrations at the walls; he then cues THE RHINO and THE VULTURE to attack the facility, with the Rhino battering his way through the front gates, and the Vulture swooping in to drop smoke and concussion bombs. Octavius cues SPENCER SMYTHE, who remotely guides a Spider Slayer into the facility as the others continue to spread mayhem.

Cut to Horizon High, where students are bent over test papers. MAX MODELL at the front of the room, reacts as one of the cell phones piled on the desk, goes off. He examines it, and tells PETER PARKER that he got a news alert; when Peter asks what it is, Modell tells him: "Nothing you'd be interested in," and lays down the phone even as the Bugle website announces that "The Sinister Six" have attacked the Raft.

Act I
At the Raft, the Six retreat once The Scorpion emerges from the smoking front of the prison, with the Vulture, Shocker, Spider Slayer, and Ock driving off the pursuing choppers. The Six take to the sewers to dodge the last of the pursuers. The Scorpion asks what happened to their fancy corporate headquarters; Ock laments that the League of Super-Scientists has suffered a temporary "reputational setback," which Toomes translates as "He means the cops want to arrest the lot of us."

At Horizon, the test is over and Peter is talking to Max about Octavius: Modell particularly is confused by his recent criminal antics, which don't square with his old ideals or with this "League of Super-Scientists" that he had been advertising. But that reminds Modell: Is Peter interested in going out with him this weekend to see the rocket launch at Cordco? Modell has been invited, as he helped design the space telescope it is going to put into orbit. Peter declines, saying that he promised to help his AUNT MAY—who chooses that moment to enter and ask Peter if he's finally ready to go home. Modell wishes him well, and tells him not to worry about Octavius.

In their underground lair, Vulture demands to know of Octavius is ever going to get around to explaining what their plan is—"I didn't follow you in a jailbreak just so I can hang around in a sewer." Scorpion, who is warily eyeing the glassy-eyed Rhino, asks if "the big guy" is part of the gang now. Shocker: "We're the Sinister Six, aren't we, and he's number six." Octavius angrily insists that they are "The League of Super-Scientists," and that they will be feted as the saviors of the planet once his plan has been put into operation. Yes, the jailbreaks were an unfortunate improvisation, he admits, but after all it is better to ask forgiveness than permission, and they all have a part in the plan. Scorpion, still hesitant about Rhino, asks how they're going to keep "the monster" to the plan, and Octavius retorts they will do it the same way they're doing it now. He shows Scorpion a microprocessor attached to Rhino's neck: "A little prize I found when exploring the ruins of the lair of your ex-employer, Dr. Stromm. With that on him he will do exactly what I want him to do." "And that is?" Toomes asks.

Cut to The Rhino bursting through a wall and onto a crowded street, battering away onrushing traffic as he gallops away with a sheaf of papers in the crook of his arm. Spider-Man swings in and sprays a web across the Rhino's path. This slows him down, but he is knocked free when an out-of-control bus smashes into him. Spider-Man tries but fails to get a tracker onto him before turning to stop a worse automotive pile up. Once some order has been restored to the street, he notices that some Rhino's paperwork is still caught in the webbing, and he retrieves it.

Max Modell is crossing the Horizon campus when Spider-Man drops down on him and shoves a paper in his face: "The Sinister Six are targeting the rocket launch," he tells Modell. "Any idea what they would want with it?" Modell confesses he doesn't know, and when Spidey says that he ought to warn the police and Cordco, Modell asks what proof he can give them of the danger. He doesn't think Spider-Man's say-so will be enough, and tells Spidey he is probably going to have to capture one of the Sinister Six and make him talk before the authorities will take it seriously. When Spider-Man asks how he supposed to do that, Modell asks which of them is supposed to be the superhero, and reminds him that the rocket launch is going to be later that afternoon.

Act II
In his bedroom, HARRY OSBORN is talking on the phone to Anya Corazon when he's interrupted by a call on another line: an impatient Peter asking if Harry knows how to get in touch with either Alistair or Spencer Smythe, given that they were both at Oscorp and OASIS with him. Harry sarcastically reminds Peter that both men are wanted criminals; when Peter asks if Harry has any leads on them or the Sinister Six at all, a discomfited Harry moves into a closet and confides that his dad (Norman) turned over a large piece of equipment to Otto Octavius late last week—a satellite seized by the government from Advanced Idea Mechanics and sold to Oscorp for study. Peter shrilly asks why Norman is dealing with criminals, and why Harry didn't tell the authorities. Harry becomes angry and defensive, telling Peter that his family's business, not Peter's; only when he finishes yelling does he notice that Peter has already hung up on him.

Spider-Man races across the city to the Bilderberg Academy, which the only place in the city where he might get a lead on AIM, which the only link he has to the Sinister Six. As he is surveying the scene, he sees Spencer Smythe and another man getting into a car. He follows as it pulls into traffic, and in a fit of desperation leaps onto it and punches a hole in the roof. The car careens out of control as Spidey tears the roof off and reaches in, and he just has time to grab someone inside the car before it skids toward an oncoming semi. Spidey webs away, and only after he's on a nearby roof does he discover that he's hauled out the other man, not Spencer; looking down he sees Spencer with a large briefcase, disappearing into a skyscraper. Spidey holds the terrified man over the edge of the roof and informs him, "You're going to tell me everything you know about the Sinister Six, and then you're going to tell the police everything you know about them."

In the Six's lair, a shaken Smythe enters with the briefcase; in the center of the workspace, Toomes and Alistair are putting together a satellite. Spencer hands Octavius the briefcase with the comment, "The final piece of the death ray." The words "death ray" alarm Toomes; Octavius tells him to mind his own business as he opens the briefcase and withdraws a cylinder. He admires the workmanship of the "focusing disintegrating lens, the best engineering Advanced Idea Mechanics can supply," then oohs and aahs over the other item from the briefcase, though: a large vial. "It's a serum, isn't it?" a dubious Spencer asks; Octavius nods, and says that it is "Advanced Ideas' payment" for their little job. Octavius very carefully returns it to the briefcase, and gently lays the briefcase aside. He consults the clock on his phone and tells his colleagues that they will commence the operation in four hours.

At Cordco, jumpy security guards corner Spider-Man, but an anxious Max Modell intervenes, telling them that Spider-Man is with him. Spidey congratulates him on the quick work getting the National Guard out; Modell credits it to Spidey getting the AIM engineer to talk. Spidey asks why they are continuing with the launch instead of scrubbing; Modell says that the launch was too far along, and Cordco decided it was safer to get the rocket with the space telescope into orbit rather than leave it around where the Sinister Six could seize it. Spidey isn't sure the extra security will be enough to stop the Six, and he hopes the show of force will at least bluff the Six into holding back. The answer comes in the form of an earthquake, and then an explosion. Spidey swings away.

Spidey is drawn to two separate attacks: in one part of the launch compound, Shocker is causing an earthquake that is causing the launch control building to crack and buckle; in another, the Rhino is mauling security. As these occupy Spider-Man, the Scorpion charges into the launch control facility and drives the mission control specialists out of the buckling building. Then, after he's given the all-clear, the Vulture, carrying Dr. Octopus, who is carrying the Six's satellite, swoops onto the rocket gantry. The Vulture flies away and adds his sonic shriek to the battle as Octavius wrenches away the housing of the rocket nose cone.

Act III
Spidey is busy with and exhausted by the fight with four of the Six, but he has the presence of mind to notice that the countdown clock is still going, even though the mission control specialists are outside and cowering from the fight. After incapacitating Rhino under a mountain of iron scrap, he charges into the launch control center and finds Spencer Smythe there, manning the computers and readying the rocket launch. Before he can complete the sequence, though, Spider-Man webs him to the ceiling. His other pursuers pile into the room, but Spidey stops them with a plea: How can they cooperate with Octavius to launch a "death ray" into orbit?

As the others listen, he explains that Advanced Idea Mechanics has paid Octavius to substitute for the space telescope an orbiting laser cannon capable of incinerating a square mile of the Earth at a time, with which AIM will hold the world hostage. When he finishes, he is interrupted by Octavius, who has crept in behind and who now launches the rocket. But as the rocket arcs into the sky, he tells the horrified Spider-Man, "It's not a laser cannon without this," and hurls the "disintegrating lens" to Spider-Man's feet. He then explains that yes, AIM commissioned him to build and substitute a laser cannon, but he has double-crossed them, and instead of a laser cannon he has launched an anti-pollution satellite that will use gamma rays to scrub the atmosphere of toxic emissions.

A dumbfounded Spider-Man asks why he didn't just offer the satellite to the government anyway; Octavius replies that he had to pretend to work for AIM in order to get what he really wanted: a serum—which he takes out to display—for the dying son of Wilson Fisk. And if all he has done is a crime, he boasts, he is willing to pay for it. But first, he adds, there's one more commission he has undertaken; and before Spider-Man can react Octavius seizes him: He has been hired to deliver the Spider-Man to Norman Osborn.

He is wrongfooted, though, by the sudden appearance of the Rhino, bursting into the room and knocking everyone askew. Rhino seizes Spider-Man, tucks him under an arm, and charges out. A horrified and incredulous Octavius declares that someone else has taken control of the governing microprocessor.

Dissolve to a TV monitor showing the arrest of The Sinister Six (now five, minus the Rhino); the camera backs away to show Spider-Man bound at the wrists and ankles and struggling inside an electronic rig as a docile Rhino stands nearby. A desperate Spidey asks MENDEL STROMM, who is working at a nearby console, if he plans to zombify him, like he did to Rhino. No, Stromm declares, that was all Octavius's idea, though it was a stroke of luck that he (Stromm) was happy to take advantage of by overriding Otto's control. As for what he (Stromm) wants: Nothing very much, he says as he jams a helmet onto Spidey's head; he just wants to copy Spider-Man's mind and reflexes into his latest invention. The camera pans over to a humanoid figure with Spidey's coloration. But this one has eight limbs.

Commentary: ""The Sinister Six"" 

Next: "S01E20 "I, Robot Master""