the Mind’s Chew Toy

Plot: Sam (Harrison) is a college drop-out who works at The Work Bench with pals Bert (Lapine) and Ben (Gonzalez)…and the girl of his dreams, Andi (Peregrym). He’s basically meandering through life…until his 21st birthday, when he discovers his parents sold his soul to the Devil (Wise) before he was born. Now, he’s the Devil’s reluctant new bounty hunter, and must return escaped souls back to Hell.

This one looked hilarious from the first preview…and the first 2 episodes haven’t let us down. This has to be one of the funniest shows on TV at the moment….and Ray Wise is perfect as the Devil, complete with his “devil-may-care” attitude.

The team of best pals Harrsion and Lapine works well too, with Lapine being the more in-your-face funny of the two, and Harrison playing his straight man buddy to a T. Gonzalez seems to be the Kenny of the show, as he is the only one of the main characters injured so far in both episodes that we’ve seen.

The first episode, directed by Kevin Smith, was an outrageously funny introduction to the series, and hooked us right from the first moment. Smith, with his hilarious experience, was a perfect choice for directors for the first episode, as he was able to combine loads of humor (at one point, the Devil is making chicken-fried steak, and makes a comment saying he’s happy he doesn’t have arteries before taking a big bite) into what could have been a rather frightening concept. After all, the escaped souls do quite a bit of killing in each episode, so the humor has to be that much more intense to override that angle.

Watching Sam learn about the newfound powers that come with the Devil’s gig is quite a comical experience as well. Whether it’s being able to control things (at times) with his mind or developing a static charge when an electrical soul escapes, it’s fun to watch him and his friends try to figure out how his power is going to help them survive their encounter with the escaped soul.

Another fun trend to watch in future episodes is the “vessel” he is given by the Devil to trap each escaped soul. Each “vessel” is different, but their purpose is the same: to trap the escaped soul, so Sam can bring him to the nearest “portal” (in Sam’s case, that’s the DMV) to send the baddie back to Hell. So far, Sam’s “vessels” have included a rather powerful DirtDevil and a remote control truck. It’ll be fun to keep watching to see what “vessel” he’ll get next.

With Kevin Smith’s brilliant introductory episode, Reaper immediately jumped to our must-see list…jsut as it should yours.

Check it out Tuesdays at 9pm on The CW.