Next Week’s ‘Naomi’ Pays A Visit To S.T.A.R. Labs(?)
by Erik Amaya
The following preview for next week’s episode of Naomi is pretty vague in terms of plot, but Zumbado’s (Cranston Johnson) warning about S.T.A.R. Labs is pretty pointed. Who will Naomi (Kaci Walfall) find working there? Meanwhile, Anthony (Will Meyers) and Nathan (Daniel Puig) clash over the latter’s current relationship with Naomi.
We’ll be honest: like Zumbado, we’ll also warn Naomi about going to S.T.A.R. Labs. In the best case scenario, she’ll get Barry Allen’s Disease (aka a guilt complex), but there are other realities in the DC Multiverse where S.T.A.R. Labs is a less-than reputable establishment. Will they try to mine Naomi’s powers for new tech?
As for this week, it’s strange to see the program slow to such a crawl. Before the late winter break, episodes of Naomi moved at a pretty good clip with the title character and her friends solving a mystery and going through some typical high school drama. We know the format works. Yet, for this week, it creaked along with its leadership retreat setting and oddly obscured mystery. We’re going to assume to slower pace has its origin in COVID-19 productions restrictions — indeed, it feels like all the CW superhero shows suffer from that same production restraint — and this episode just happened to be the one where characters had to be limited to a maximum of three per scene. Except, of course, for the one exterior scene featuring four main characters and some extras.
Sadly, those restrictions will continue for sometime and we hope the writing will accommodate that with more of the snap it had in the first four episodes.
Naomi airs Tuesdays on The CW.
