So it's no surprise that Act II of Whedon's hit web-series Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog has a little food for thought mixed in amongst the freeze rays and melodies.

The episode starts off with Dr. Horrible bemoaning the fickle finger of fate on his blog. Although he pulled off his latest caper, he inadvertently introduced Penny, the girl of his dreams to his arch nemesis, Captain Hammer. And now (Joy! Rapture! Not really!) they're dating.

Although Neil Patrick Harris's Dr. Horrible and Felicia Day's Penny have a nice duet about how Dr. Horrible is losing his faith and becoming more evil while Penny is finding faith in her new relationship, the real show-stealer is Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer.

While Captain Hammer never says a word during the duet, Fillion projects his inner horror at the thought of going to a homeless shelter and feeding the ducks in the park to impress Penny. In the way his face twists in revulsion and the way he jumps away from the ducks, you can guess what he's thinking (Ewww. Unsanitary wildlife! Icky!).

When Captain Hammer foils Dr. Horrible's latest caper, the villain is notified by singing-cowboy telegram that the only way to get into the Evil League of Evil is now through murder. This is where we see that Dr. Horrible is actually a decent guy underneath it all. He is reluctant to murder anyone. It's not elegant. And he refuses to consider kids or old people as targets.

Here is when Whedon's meta kicks in. Because Captain Hammer knows that Dr. Horrible has a crush on Penny. So the hero's (evil?) plan is to seduce Penny just because our anti-hero likes her. This is all the motivation that Dr. Horrible needs to plot murder on the hero. (On a side note, what would you call a pseudo-hero like Captain Hammer? We have names for the villain as the hero thanks to movies like Pitch Black and Riddick. We call them anti-heroes. But what do you call a hero who isn't one? An anti-villain?)

We live in an age where you can't go into a school without passing through a metal detector. Bullying has been one of the oft-sited catalysts when violence erupts in social settings. Whedon is highly conscious of this. (Both his prom-night and graduation episodes of Buffy were pulled from the air during their inaugural broadcast in the wake of school shootings. Network censors felt that the depiction of violence in high schools would be deemed insensitive in the wake of the violence. The episodes were later aired in repeats and syndication).

One can't help but feel that Whedon's Dr. Horrible is a metaphor for violence in our time. The villain is an actual nice (if not conflicted) guy. He wants to make a difference. Okay, so he wants to go about it through world-domination. Whereas our hero is a bully. He performs heroic acts because he gets a kick out of beating the snot out of the bad guys. When faced with a bully, Dr. Horrible makes some bad choices, like many of us would.

Where this is going is a mystery. At least for a few more days. Part III will go live Saturday July19.