We get the first of the show's bigly sympathetic villains, in a plot taken from 'The Phantom of the Opera'. The musical premiered in 1986, two years before this episode. Coincidence? You decide.
The episode is kinda rushed. Leslie goes from rejecting Ryan's advances, to going out to dinner with him, with no indication of her acceptance. The "figure" (20+ year spoiler alert: it's Janos, Leslie's former mentor) plays a lot of violin music and kills some people to temporarily heal his disfigured hands. Or heal his body. Or something. It isn't very clear.
Ryan falls in lust with Leslie, which makes him Janos' next target. Because Ryan is the hot (??) male lead and Leslie is female, Ryan is the one who gets to fall in love with someone this episode. Which is good that the script requires it, since Ryan and Leslie have no chemistry together. The episode does them no favors, having Ryan just fall in lust with Leslie and Leslie taking him on for no reason presented. Ryan and Leslie end up in bed with a similar lack of build-up: she says that she doesn't want to be alone tonight, and the next we see of them it's the next morning and they're in bed.
There's a whole lot of violin music playing at a distance, and in the last half lots of people running through dark corridors within the theater. Thus the review title, Ryan runs through the theater basement corridors a lot near the end, wearing a puffy Seinfeld pirate shirt, and just happens to find Janos' supposedly secret apartment, or sound stage, or whatever the heck it is. Later, after accidentally killing Leslie (whoops!), Janos runs off and Ryan... yep, runs after him. And then Janos kills himself for no particular reason. Wouldn't he kill Ryan first, when he clearly has Ryan on the ropes?
So the very episode is good enough as a standalone. But it all disappears down the memory hole by the next episode. Ryan recovers from Leslie's death in record time, and there's no mention of her ever again. He had a girlfriend, she died, and that's the end of the story. So while "Symphony" isn't a bad episode, it's not that good of one, either.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
The episode is kinda rushed. Leslie goes from rejecting Ryan's advances, to going out to dinner with him, with no indication of her acceptance. The "figure" (20+ year spoiler alert: it's Janos, Leslie's former mentor) plays a lot of violin music and kills some people to temporarily heal his disfigured hands. Or heal his body. Or something. It isn't very clear.
Ryan falls in lust with Leslie, which makes him Janos' next target. Because Ryan is the hot (??) male lead and Leslie is female, Ryan is the one who gets to fall in love with someone this episode. Which is good that the script requires it, since Ryan and Leslie have no chemistry together. The episode does them no favors, having Ryan just fall in lust with Leslie and Leslie taking him on for no reason presented. Ryan and Leslie end up in bed with a similar lack of build-up: she says that she doesn't want to be alone tonight, and the next we see of them it's the next morning and they're in bed.
There's a whole lot of violin music playing at a distance, and in the last half lots of people running through dark corridors within the theater. Thus the review title, Ryan runs through the theater basement corridors a lot near the end, wearing a puffy Seinfeld pirate shirt, and just happens to find Janos' supposedly secret apartment, or sound stage, or whatever the heck it is. Later, after accidentally killing Leslie (whoops!), Janos runs off and Ryan... yep, runs after him. And then Janos kills himself for no particular reason. Wouldn't he kill Ryan first, when he clearly has Ryan on the ropes?
So the very episode is good enough as a standalone. But it all disappears down the memory hole by the next episode. Ryan recovers from Leslie's death in record time, and there's no mention of her ever again. He had a girlfriend, she died, and that's the end of the story. So while "Symphony" isn't a bad episode, it's not that good of one, either.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?