The Event S1E7: I Know Who You Are (recap)

If there's one thing I always say -- and I do always say this, and you should ask anyone who knows me -- about TV shows, it's this: "If you can't end an episode of your TV show with a little girl entering a mysterious apartment full of what appear to be other little girls but are actually some kinda weird old people in little girl drag, then your TV show is a complete failure." The list of shows which this old maxim could be applied to is incredibly long, including such illustrious series as "The Wire," "Mad Men" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show," and tonight, "The Event" joins their ranks, as Leila's little sister, whose name I haven't bothered to learn just yet, is ushered into an apartment that looks more like a library in an ancient country house, then confronted with the fact that all of the little girls there look like old women. (And some look like old men!) Cue the end of the episode.

I have no idea what any of this means, other than the fact that "The Event" just wants to keep tossing weird stuff at us in the hopes that we'll keep watching.

Tonight's episode was a decided step back from the last one, which at least suggested the series was figuring out its voice and its structure, so maybe this last scene was just a way to keep the weirdness quotient high. It happens. But in terms of making sense of anything or dragging the story forward or even making Leila's little sister a character who's something beyond "generic little girl," the scene didn't work. It was just oddness for oddness' sake, and the producers would surely be pleased if you tuned in for next week's episode, which is already going to the well of "let's watch the highly-rated pilot from a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ANGLE." Usually, shows don't go to this well until Season 3 or 4. There'd better be a darned good reason for "The Event" to be doing so so soon. (And, as we all know by now, there won't be.)

Anyway, this is the part where I'd theoretically summarize what happened tonight and talk about what sort of bearing it had on other events. Except, the thing is, pretty much nothing DID happen. The show wisely kept to the character-specific flashbacks of the last episode, this time letting us get to know Zeljko Ivanek's Blake Sterling just a little bit better, but the connection between the past and future storylines was far more tenuous this week than it was the last time around. In that last episode, Simon was the focus of both the present and past storylines, and the two of them commented on each other in interesting ways. In this episode, Blake is pretty much just hanging out around the edges of the present storyline, and all of the big decisions are made for him in the past (outside of one crucial one). It leaves the episode feeling oddly shapeless, especially since the main plot -- the aliens making sure that Simon isn't fingered as one of them -- has so little to do with Blake.

The flashback story for Blake isn't a bad one. Fourteen years ago, he was serving in the CIA under his father and happily married to a woman named Laura. Except, whoops, as it turned out, Laura was a Russian spy, embedded in a marriage to Blake to help leak U.S. state secrets to her compatriots back in just barely post-Communist Russia. Confronted with the truth of his wife's betrayal, Blake tells her that he knows everything about what she's done, but he believes she actually loves him. (Ah, we men! Always so stupid in these matters!) Of course she doesn't, and of course she bolts, and of course his father is lurking in the bushes to shoot Laura in the head. Blake's out a wife, but his dad offers to let him take credit for shooting the woman, the better to help him advance his career. Gee. That's great, dad.

Anyway, in the "present," Blake apologizes to the president for not realizing the mole (the recently framed Murphy) was in his department. He's usually better at catching these things -- since he's cultivated a "mole sense" after the thing with his wife -- but he let the country down this time.

This is all well and good, but it has so little to do with the major plots of the episode proper, which mostly have to do with Thomas coming up with a way to get Simon off the hook when he's so obviously guilty and Sean and Leila seeking out a mysterious dude who can help them find her sister, that it feels
inconsequential. It's nice to know more about the past of Blake, but it's simultaneously far from necessary. The title of the episode, "I Know Who You Are," is what Blake says to his wife when he finds out her terrible secret, but I think it's also meant to be applied to more and more of the characters, who reveal little things about themselves in this episode. (For example, as it turns out, Sophia is Thomas' mother, though I have this weird feeling we learned this before.) So, yes, it's good to know more about who Blake really is, but the best episodes of shows like this unite the past and present action through some sort of character and thematic continuity. This episode might have been better off as a flashback about Thomas, but it's obvious the series doesn't want to play that card this soon into its run.

So what we're left with is a centerless episode that doesn't do a lot to justify its existence. So little actually happens -- when the episode ends, we're basically where we were at the start of the last episode -- that it's tempting to write this off as yet another episode for marking time. Yet Ivanek is such a skillful actor and there are just enough neat little touches around the edges that I would rank this above the first few episodes of the show, where it felt like everything was just going to keep running in circles. And then there's that ending, which is just strange enough to make me want to see how it's resolved. (My prediction? The little girls are the ones from that encoded document Sean found, and the conspiracy dudes -- led by Hal Holbrook, who's mostly wasted but always a welcome presence -- have been trying various things to make them ageless, like the aliens, and have mostly failed.) This is a bland, shapeless episode of television, but it isn't as bad as it could have been.

The story in brief, in case you've checked out: It sure looks like Simon's the mole, which means that he's going to face some pretty horrific "enhanced interrogation" as Blake and his pals try to get information about the aliens' plan out of him. Thomas, however, has other ideas, and he spends much of the hour figuring out a way to get Simon off the hook, finally framing Murphy, the guy who caught on to what Simon was up to in the last episode, for the leaks. Oh, and Sophia is his mom. Blake, for his part, was betrayed by his wife 14 years ago -- she was a Russian spy! -- and then his dad killed her. Yikes. Sean and Leila spend most of the episode running around (when don't they?), but they at least find out that somebody somewhere was interested in girls around Leila's sister's age, right before the hacker they've turned to to help get this information blows up his apartment to stop the Feds, who are closing in. Oh, and Leila's sister? She's led to an apartment full of creepy old person kids. Yeah, we have no idea either.

--Todd VanDerWerff (follow me on Twitter at @tvoti)

The Event S1E5: Casualties of war (Recap) (from LA TIMES)

"Casualties of War" has a couple of things that put it ahead of every other episode of "The Event" so far: a sense of purpose headed forward and a central question that puts its characters through something like the wringer. It's the best episode of the show so far because it slows down to tell something like an actual story, not just a long collection of events. And it centers that story on the two characters who actually make sense as characters at this point, Sean Walker and President Martinez. To be sure, most of the reason these characters are compelling has to do with the men playing them, not with anything the writers have done with them. But that doesn't mean that this episode isn't a fine showcase for the work of Jason Ritter and Blair Underwood, all the same.

The episode split down the middle like this: Sean tried to finally get Leila back, with the help of his FBI agent pal and, briefly, Vicky, while Martinez attempted to save the people from the plane, who were suffering from some sort of biological weapon and/or ailment. In the process of doing this, both men were forced to make some pretty terrible threats, and we were left to wonder if they would follow through. Meanwhile, the bad guys showed themselves capable of even worse stuff, and we got some nice glimpses into the past of the aliens, specifically their role in helping spur the Manhattan Project. There was some nice storytelling scattered throughout, and although the show continues to over-rely on hacky devices like the nesting-doll structure of the flashbacks, at least the episode more or less broke down into a concrete set of goals for the characters, and at least it didn't force a massive cliffhanger.

Let's start with Martinez. At this point, an idealistic president who confronts the limits of his ideals when he has to make a terrible choice to save the lives of hundreds of Americans is a TV cliche. The presidents on "24" and "The West Wing" both had to deal with these sorts of issues (fittingly, one of the show runners on "The Event" is a "24" alumnus), and numerous other tales of presidents facing down impossible threats have pivoted on similar plot points. So the idea that Martinez would have to confront his own desires to be a good man in the face of having to save the people on the plane was a bit of a nonstarter for me. Furthermore, within the universe of the show, Martinez has already compromised on his ideals. He was bent on releasing the alien detainees from their camp in Alaska, but he put a hold on that when he learned that there were more of them than he thought there were. Because he's already in a moral gray area he doesn't want to be in, I'm not sure his moral struggle had as much resonance as the show wanted it to, particularly when it came to handing over Sophia.

That said, Underwood really played the heck out of this moral calculus, this attempt to decide whether it was better to let everybody on the plane die and not have to compromise with the show's version of terrorists, or whether it was better for him to play hardball with the aliens by threatening to kill all of the detainees. Martinez knows the one option he doesn't have is to release the detainees, because that means that another species with far greater technology than his own will be calling the shots, and that puts him in a terrible position. Without the detainees, he doesn't have a bargaining chip, even as he wants to do the right thing. The weight of the decision to threaten the detainees was handled well both by the show and by Underwood, who played this with a kind of tense remove. The final moments, in which he and Thomas come to a kind of agreement -- he'll just turn over Sophia for the lives of all of the plane passengers -- were among the best the series has done, and I liked that the show let us know just how much these decisions weighed on Thomas as well.

Meanwhile, in Texas, Sean used the one bit of leverage he had to get Vicky to betray her own people. He knows about her son, who's not actually her son but, rather, a baby she rescued from a scene where she was supposed to kill everyone in the building. By threatening to expose her boy, Sean got Vicky to gun down her own men (a plot point that doesn't make a lot of sense, but whatever), then managed to get to Leila and finally rescue her. I'm glad the show hasn't stretched this out any further than needed, and that it seems like we're going to start getting some answers soon as to just why the conspiracy's so interested in Sean. A lot of this plot was pretty implausible -- mostly stemming from Sean's hacker friend's oh-so-convenient powers -- but at least it put Sean in the same place as Martinez, forcing him to make a terrible threat (of exposing Vicky's son) and then having us wonder if he'd follow through.

By far the most interesting development, though, has to do with the fact that the aliens destroyed their ship when they crashed in the 1940s and thus spent much of the 20th century trying to influence human technology in such a way as to reattain the kinds of parts they needed to rebuild their ship. This meant that the aliens got deeply involved in the Manhattan Project (of course they did), but we also got to see how Sophia originally sent Thomas out into the population at large, clearly not really knowing just what he would get up to once he was out there. It was a neat little flashback, and it mostly told one cohesive story of its own, something the other flashbacks haven't done.

I wouldn't say that "The Event" has risen to a level where I'm going to recommend it. This was still a bad episode of television in a lot of ways. But at least it was largely competent and told a story that mostly made sense. Sure, plenty of stuff was pointless and/or stupid, but there were some nice moments for much of the cast, and it gave a template for the show going forward. Plus, the cliffhanger -- which just involved Martinez putting Sophia on a train for Thomas to pick up -- was nicely small-scale, compared with the constant stream of cliffhangers involving the plane passengers. Every serialized show needs a sense that its story line breaks more easily into smaller components. This episode finally suggested that was true of "The Event," and I hope the show follows its lead going forward, especially now that the series has a full season order.

The story, in case you didn't bother to tune in: The president, after much hemming and hawing, finally cut a deal with Thomas to obtain an antidote for the passengers of the plane in exchange for turning over Sophia to the alien separatist leader (or whatever you want to call him). Meanwhile, Sean used his knowledge that Vicky's son was the sole survivor of a massacre that Vicky carried out to gain his girlfriend's safety, though the two were far from safe. Finally, it became clear that the aliens have been messing in human scientific development, the better to fix their ship and return to their home, wherever that may be.

-- Todd VanDerWerff (follow me on Twitter at @tvoti)

The Event S1E4: A Matter of Life and Death (Full Ep and Recap)

Does “The Event” exhaust anybody else? Every week, the individual scenes are crafted specifically to avoid giving the audience any helpful information. After the second episode – where we learned about the aliens and what happened to the plane – we’ve been getting an increasingly elaborate shell game, one seemingly designed just to keep the audience riding high on a buzz of constant plot momentum. But when the plot keeps circling the same five or six things, it just gets tiring to have to cheer loudly as the juggler at the center of the show keeps all of the balls (and chainsaws and what have you) in the air. Put another way, I’m pretty sure I could skip all but the first five and last five minutes of “The Event” and not really miss anything (well, I could, if it wasn’t my job to keep up with it). Everything in between is a long, long journey to nowhere.

“But, Todd!” you say. “Lots of other shows have had this ‘put the action up front and at the end’ structure, and you’ve liked many of them!” Indeed, I have. “24” was the epitome of the super-fun TV thrill ride (at least when it was good). “Lost” was one of my favorite shows ever, combining a bunch of genre tropes I really liked with some awesome plotting and mysteries. I even liked the goofy fun of the first seasons of “Prison Break” and “Heroes,” which were supremely dumb shows but at least sort of proud of that fact, as they just kept coming up with endless strings of insane plot twists. Honestly, if “The Event” were more like those latter two shows, I’d just be rolling with it. I’d know, deep down, that it wasn’t GOOD, but I’d at least be having fun. But look at those four shows I just listed. See how many characters you can name from those shows, just off the top of your head. Now see how many you can list from "The Event." Without checking IMDB, I get to Sean (because he's the main character) and President Blair Underwood before running out of room. Even the DUMBEST of those other shows - "Prison Break," if you're playing along at home - had a wealth of fun characters in it. But “The Event” wants to have its guilty pleasure cake and eat it too. It wants to be dumb and profound and thrilling all at once, and it’s failing at all three tasks.

Take tonight’s final plot twist, which might just be the dumbest plot twist in the history of plot twists. You know that whole thing where the evil Vicky (or whatever you want to call her) and her good pal Carter (played by the always enjoyable D.B. Sweeney) are apparently foiled by the feisty Leila, who breaks out after the latter leaves a giant chunk of glass in her basement prison, the better for Leila to cut loose her bonds and make her escape, shooting Vicky in the process, leading the evil one to tumble down the stairs. Of course, Leila goes to the cops, and of course, we’re suspecting that the cops have been turned (or the conspiracy is monitoring the phone lines). But what happens at the end is even stupider: The conspiracy has set up an elaborate ruse to get Leila to call Sean, so he’ll come and try to rescue her and they can … do something to him.

Let’s leave aside for the moment that the easiest possible way to get Leila to call Sean is to leave a cellphone within her reach. Let’s also leave aside for the moment that a global conspiracy could probably get a guy’s cellphone number if they really wanted to – regardless of whether that guy is on their radar or not. What makes this whole sequence so frustrating is that it exists purely to keep the audience guessing. Nothing can change, and everything has to be reversed because otherwise, there can’t be a series. Leila can’t escape. Sean can’t find her. The conspiracy must always exist because shows like this always have a conspiracy. It’s like there’s been no thought given to explaining to the audience why any of this is worth caring about or why any of these characters are worth our affection. Instead, every effort has been made to just keep plates spinning as long as possible, while the show tap dances.

Every week, I go into this show thinking that this will be the episode where I can turn off my brain and just go with the stupidity. Every week, I’m wrong. It’s simply a long chase sequence that sacrifices everything in the name of superficial forward momentum. Honestly, if you were to summarize everything that’s happened this season so far, you would probably cover less space than if you were to summarize the events of non-serialized shows like “Hawaii Five-0” or “The Defenders.” At least in those shows, the characters take on new cases from week to week. On “The Event,” everything is devoted to keeping up the illusion that things are happening, even as the show is constantly struggling to get back to the status quo. To take another exceptionally stupid example from tonight’s episode, just why would a threat be made to kill all of the people from the plane when they’ve been killed and resurrected once already (and had their memories wiped)? Why not have the alien leader guy use the death of the people on the plane as a legitimate threat? Or promise to use his technology to make all humans immortal? Or something other than just going a step forward, then immediately taking that same step back?

I write enough about what makes me angry about this show from week to week that I suppose it would be best to talk about some of the things I am still enjoying. Jason Ritter remains a likable presence at the show’s center, and his scene with Vicky’s son (yes, she has a son) was well-done. I like the occasional bit of story development when the show lets the audience figure something out for itself – like when we caught a glimpse of Sean’s phone being low on battery and were able to piece together that Leila wouldn’t get through to him because … his battery died. And I really enjoy the scenes between Blair Underwood and Laura Innes, even if they keep repeating the same basic lines of dialogue over and over. The actors are such pros that pretty much everything they’re handed ends up being more fun than it has any right to be.

But I headed into “A Matter of Life and Death” wanting to write about how I can sort of enjoy the show on that stupid level I did “Heroes” and “Prison Break,” before I realized that that’s simply no longer true. Maybe it was true in the pilot, and maybe it was true in the second episode, but by now, the series has put enough of its cards on the table that we should be getting into some truly insane stuff. Instead, it mostly just keeps having the same chase sequence over and over and over, with a little computer hacking thrown in for good measure. Sure, “Heroes” and “Prison Break” were stupid, but they weren’t afraid to blow stuff up. “The Event” keeps lighting fuses and then snuffing them out just as quickly.

The plot in a nutshell, in case you’ve been sensible enough to give up on this show: All of those people who woke up last week? They’re alive, but they don’t remember what happened on the plane. Until the possibly evil alien guy is all, “Look what I can do!” and gives them nose bleeds, which apparently will lead to their deaths. (You ever notice how often a nose bleed is a harbinger of doom on TV? Sometimes, a nose bleed is just a nose bleed.) President Blair Underwood receives a threat to this effect from a phone that was secretly placed in his kid’s backpack. The other aliens want Sophia and company, and they’ll do anything to get her. Torture keeps getting brought up obliquely because the show wants to seem like it has its finger on the pulse of modern America. (And when the president first met Sophia, she just wanted to be like any other immigrant – also topical!) Sean and his new FBI friend race all over, without really accomplishing anything (though they find Vicky’s mom and son), but Leila breaks out of her bonds on her own. It turns out it was a set up by the conspiracy to lure in Sean. And Hal Holbrook’s disembodied voice controls the conspiracy!

--Todd VanDerWerff (follow me on Twitter at @tvoti)
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/10/the-event-recap-dumb-plot-twists-galore.html

The Event S1E3 "Protect Them From The Truth"

On the third episode of The Event, Sean gained an ally in FBI agent Claire Collier (Heather McComb). Sterling wants to use unscrupulous means to get Sophia to talk, but the president and vice president have a different plan. We learn confusing new information about the victims of the "crash" of Avias Flight 514.

SEAN WALKER

Just seconds after the FBI agents were told to take an alternate route because of a "chemical spill" last week, an errant RV plows into their car. Sean escapes easily, but the agents are both trapped inside. He extracts Claire, but Claire's partner doesn't make it.

Sean takes Claire to a motel room, where he attempts to use her laptop to gain access to the bureau's facial-recognition software so he can identify the nefarious Vicky Roberts. Claire explains that he can only access it from inside the building. When Claire's colleagues arrive to rescue her, Sean appears to have escaped, but actually he has snuck into the agents' trunk. He's captured at the FBI building trying to identify Vicky, and Claire arranges for a transfer of the prisoner.

At the FBI office, a newscaster says that air traffic control lost contact with Avias Flight 514, aka Sean's flight, about an hour ago. Claire realizes that it has been four hours since Sean told her about it, so clearly this is some sort of cover-up. So she's starting to believe him.

As if on cue, the office erupts in gunfire, as what was expected to be a standard transfer is something else entirely. Nearly everyone is shot and killed, but Sean escapes with Claire.

PRESIDENT MARTINEZ

Speaking of a cover-up, the vice president is concerned that Sterling, left unchecked, will resort to unscrupulous means to get Sophia to talk. He's concerned because that's exactly what Sterling says he's going to do. The president says that the Martinez administration does not practice torture, and that he has a better plan. He makes an announcement to the detainees at Inastranka, promising to release whoever helps them solve the mystery of the plane crash.

Sophia says it won't work, but one prisoner, the erratic William, steps forward. He wants money and protection for him and his girlfriend Maya, who is also a detainee at Inastranka.

Simon visits Sophia and figures out that William hasn't revealed anything about what Thomas did to the passengers. "I know he hasn't talked, since we're all still alive," Sophia says. "And now you'll have to deal with him ... harshly," she tells Simon.

And he does. Maya is released from Inastranka, and just as the happy couple starts to plan their future together, Maya's face changes and she stabs William.

LEILA

It's still unclear who Vicky works for, perhaps some sort of governmental black-ops division. That said, whatever Vicky & Co. are doing, it is not in consultation with the executive branch — unless ... they're working on the sly for Sterling.

Vicky drives to a storage facility at the port, where she locks Leila into a marine storage container. She intends to return later to kill her once she hears that Sean has been eliminated, but since he escapes, they have to keep Leila alive a little bit longer.

MICHAEL

And she's not the only one. In the final scene of the episode, we see a soldier patrolling the temporary morgue for victims of the "crash" of Avias 514. As the camera pans over the corpses, we see that Michael is among the dead. But then we hear moaning — someone is still alive! And then one by one, each of the victims wakes up. Nobody is dead.

No Ordinary Family S1E1: Pilot (recap & full episode link

Welcome to the Powell family, better known as ABC’s “No Ordinary Family.” Jim (Michael Chiklis, “The Shield”) is a police sketch artist, whose wife, Stephanie (Julie Benz, “Dexter”), is a successful research scientist. They have two kids; Daphne (Kay Panabaker, “Summerland”), a 16-year-old with a cheating boyfriend, and JJ (Jimmy Bennett, “Star Trek”), the 14-year-old self-proclaimed “idiot” of the family. The Powells were just a normal family until they took a sunset plane tour of the Amazon and crashed into some super special magical body of water, although they didn’t realize it at the time.

The foursome returns to their suburban life. Jim’s unhappy that his family seems to be further disconnected despite the fact that they survived a plane crash together (not so for their pilot). Stephanie continues to skyrocket up the corporate ladder, receiving funding to research a flowering plant she found in the Amazon. (Their “vacation” originated as a business trip for her.) And the kids return to high school.

All seems unchanged until…

Jim’s at work in the precinct talking to his cop buddy Yvonne by the vending machines when an arrested thug brought in for questioning grabs a gun from a cop’s holster and fires it. Jim dives for Yvonne and catches the bullet as they fall to the floor. The both rise and Yvonne immediately starts looking for the bullet as Jim heads outside to get some air, furtively clutching the crushed bullet.

He meets his best friend, George (Romany Malco, “Weeds”) who also happens to be the district attorney, on a rooftop where he tests his super strength by jumping off and trying to fly, limbs outstretched. He falls to the ground instead, shattering concrete in an alley. Pushing off, he bounds back to the roof to George’s delight.

Return to Stephanie, who promised her husband a date night, which, of course, she cancels to have drinks with her new research funder. But there’s traffic on the freeway, so Stephanie starts running and soon she’s whooshing by cars. She halts and finds herself in the middle lane with cars zooming past.

“I need you to shoot me,” Jim says to George at the local batting cages. Jim’s rented them out for $200, ensuring he’s the only one there as he attempts to see if he can catch a 140 mph fastball. George can’t fire the gun and then misfires, and Jim leaps for the bullet as George faints.

Just as Jim confides in George before speaking to his wife, Stephanie looks to reveal her power to her research assistant, Katie (Autumn Reeser, “The O.C.”). On a horse track, Katie holds a radar gun while Stephanie runs circles in the dirt. “You’re doing a mile every six seconds,” Katie says. “Oh, I thought I was faster than that,” Stephanie replies, barely short of breath.

Another day passes. Stephanie finds herself finally able to help JJ with his homework, which he clearly doesn’t understand, nor does he seemingly want to. And then there’s Daphne who can’t comprehend why girls are flirting with her boyfriend.

Back to Jim, who’s stolen a police walkie-talkie and has the urge to use his powers to fight crime. He’s hot on the trail of a police chase when he lands on a suspect’s car, dislodges the door and tosses it, and the driver, into a pile of trash. He’s soon to be the hero until he’s shot at point blank range in the back of the neck. He starts to bleed and calls George for help. He’s then in bed, with George and his wife, who now knows why, at his side.




They call a family meeting to tell the kids, but the kids haven’t shown any signs of powers until…

Daphne’s on the basketball court warming up for a game with her team, when she begins to hear their thoughts and then, appropriately, freaks out. Still no power for JJ, though, who’s bummed. Stephanie’s now showing signs of actually being home, and comforts them both.

Back to Daphne, hanging out with her boyfriend, who’s clearly cheating on her with Emily, Daphne’s best friend. Daphne realizes this when she’s on the couch with Lucas, and begins to hear his thoughts. She then, promptly, storms out crying.

In the meantime, baby brother JJ (good news!), is in a math test and suddenly sees answers to formulas. He scrambles to write them all down before they disappear. Looks like he found his power.

Jim’s healed now, and he’s back on the job chasing Yvonne’s criminals when he encounters the man who shot him. After stuffing Yvonne in the trunk of his car, this man proceeds to fight with Jim in a parking garage, disappearing into a slippery cloud and reappearing in another place. “You thought you were the only one,” the man proclaims to Jim. But before Jim has a chance to absorb the statement, Yvonne frees herself from the trunk and shoots-to-kill the man, in disbelief that Jim’s there.



In the penultimate scene, the dead man is flat on a table deep in the bowels of a building with Dr. Dayton King, Stephanie’s mentor. The doctor is hatching a plan to cover up the body, never letting anyone know who or what this creature is.

The pilot ends with Stephanie and Jim in a therapist’s office, talking about their familial problems, the least of which is their newfound powers. The doctor suggests twice a week appointments, and the couple agree.

Until…next time.

Thank you ABC for not allowing us to post the episode on our site.  Here's the link: http://abc.go.com/watch/no-ordinary-family/SH5572605/VD5588500/pilot

The Event S1E2: To Keep Us Safe

The Event is the newest show to leave you guessing and wanting more at the end of an episode. Last week's episode ended with questions, and this week's is supposed to have answers.

Where's the Plane?

When the plane disappeared in mid-air, it traveled to the desert, where it makes a rough landing. They realize part of the plane is on fire and everyone evacuates. Michael tells Sean that four days earlier, he was kidnapped and forced to fly the plane because they showed him Leila and threatened to kill his daughters like they did his wife. Vicky has Leila. Helicopters are headed their way but Michael says they're not there to help and tells Sean to go save Leila. At the end of the episode, Lee arrives on scene with other government officials, but no one else is there except for Michael. But then they find all the passengers dead, and not from the plane crash.

Who Are the Detainees?

Meanwhile, Secret Service hurries to get the President and his family away from the scene. President Martinez wants to know what happened to the plane more than he wants to know why it was headed his way. The government is already working on covering it up from the public. A burst of radiation was picked up where the plane disappeared, and they're trying to figure out how it could've been done. Blake Sterling may have the answer. In the 1940s, a plane crashed with 97 survivors (the detainees), who were determined to be "not of terrestrial origin." Though they look human, they age slowly and their DNA is different. They're being held because they're not saying why they're there.

What Happened to Leila?

Sean is now walking through the desert, but he collapses because of the heat. Flasback to the cruise: Leila's not feeling well. Vicky shows up and the two girls convince him to go snorkeling. Greg shows up with a hangover cure for Leila. He hits on her, but she tells him to leave. Security is waiting at the door, but the guard stabs Greg and Leila is taken. Sean wakes up in a hospital in Arizona, and he wants to talk to the police. When the nurse calls the police, the officer looks Sean up in the database and it turns out he's wanted for Greg's murder. The nurse tells Sean the police are on the way for his statement, but he can tell she's hiding something. When he sees the police show up, he runs. The nurse tells him of the murder suspicion and points the police in his direction. Flashback to five years earlier and Sean's swimming in Boston. He meets Leila and teaches her how to float. Sean is caught by the FBI by the exit. Sean tries to explain everything to the FBI agents, but they don't believe him. He says they're coming up to near where the plane landed but the road is blocked off for a chemical spill.

Interviewing Sophia

Flashback to when Sophia's plane landed: Sophia says she'll stay with the wounded while the others leave because not everyone can be caught. President Martinez enters Sophia's cell to question her. He's going to take responsibility and wants Sophia to do so as well. She says that they "mean...no harm" and saved his life, but can't say anything else. Sterling assigns Lee to head the operation into finding the others of Sophia's people. Flashback to Lee getting blood taken. He's applied to "Clandestine Services" in the CIA. He goes into the bathroom and pulls a tube out of his arm--is he one of these "aliens?" It's certainly looking like that could be the case. He meets with Thomas and says they had to take the plane, but wants to know where they are. Thomas says they're using the passengers.

S4E19: Brave New World (recap)

Just when you thought you'd seen it all, the season finale of "Heroes" became a full-fledged 3-ring circus. So who prevailed in the Central Park showdown? Brace yourself for the madness and lets recap the circus acts one by one.




In the left ring...





While Sylar and Peter are busting out of their mental prison, Matt is upstairs entertaining a new visitor: Eli. He tries to mind-trick Eli into going away, but it doesn't work. Luckily for Matt, Sylar knocks the real Eli out and he survives another day. But while he should be thanking his nemesis, Matt's angry that Peter is Sylar's new BFF.



Because of this Peter is forced to go inside Eli's head and see what Samuel's planning. He tells them that Samuel is going to bury the crowd underground at Central Park. Matt doesn't want to let Sylar leave, but, Sylar convinces him to go inside his head. In the end Matt's still unsure of Sylar's true motive, but lets him go. And when they leave, he starts working on Eli.



In the center ring...





Still trapped underground, Noah is preparing to leave Claire fatherless. Now that he's about to die, he's afraid of what will happen when Claire's abilities are discovered. Claire still believes that people won't be averse to the specials. But Noah says it's human nature to turn on them. So before he bites the dust, he asks Claire to promise that she'll find a way to blend in. Claire doesn't make the promise before Noah goes unconscious.



She runs to the door, starts clawing through the dirt to escape and breaks a hole big enough for some water to seep through. Lo and behold, Tracy Strauss comes spilling into the trailer. She floods the Bennets' burial ground and they all float to the surface, where Lauren is waiting for them with a chopper to escort them to New York. Tracy needs a bit of time to regroup, so they leave her behind.



In the right ring...





Hiro has recovered quite nicely from brain surgery and is ready to recapture his simple life. He tells Ando they need to stop "butterfly man" Sam, but a nurse walks in and delivers a note from a patient down the hall. It's Charlie and she wants Hiro to stop by. When Hiro arrives at Charlie's hospital room, she has aged 65 years. She explains that Samuel transported her back to 1944, but that she had a good life. Hiro apologizes, but Charlie's just glad she got to see him before she dies. He offers to fix what Samuel, but Charlie has made her peace with it. Turns out, she had the life--and family--she always wanted, so Hiro lets her go. And he's just in time because Noah has called and they're needed in New York.



The Show Stopper





The Sullivan Bros. Carnival has arrived in New York and Samuel meets the day by delivering another rousing speech to his family. Once the carnies are on board, Samuel tells Emma that it's time for her to start playing the cello so that she can lure the poor, innocent New Yorkers to their deaths. Emma immediately realizes that Peter's dream is coming true and refuses to help. But Samuel employs puppet master Doyle to force Emma to play. Sam's so proud of his deviousness, but Edgar's skeptical about Samuel's intentions.



While Samuel readies himself for the show, Noah, Claire, Peter and Sylar arrive. Noah doesn't make it far before Edgar has him. And thankfully, he's ready to help Noah silence Samuel's nonsense for good.



Sylar send Peter to fight Samuel, while he heads to the house of mirrors to stop Emma. But he quickly realizes Emma's not pulling her own strings. Sylar asks Doyle to let him save Emma because she's going to kill thousands. Doyle's so drunk off of Sam's lies that he'd rather tango with the scalp-slitter. Eventually he loses focus and releases Emma, only to have her wipe him out with her cello. And Sylar becomes the hero he promised Matt he could be.



Claire arrives to face the carnies and make her final plea. This time, she reveals everything: that they are the source of Sam's power and that Sam killed Joseph. Samuel is so confident in his brainwashing that he denies the whole thing. That is, until Edgar, Noah and Eli (good job Parkman!) corroborate the story.



The carnies are convinced and they walk out, but Sam tries to unleash his fury before they get too far. Everyone, specials and humans alike, start running. Just when Sam's about to get nasty, Peter tackles him, absorbs his power, and uses it against him.



While they scuffle, Hiro and Ando finally arrive, Claire tells Hiro he must transport everyone out. Hiro is intimidated by such a large task, but Ando offers to supercharge his powers. With a shake of his head, the specials disappear. As for the butterfly man? He weakens without his precious family and collapses in defeat.



That's where volume 6 picks up. Peter and Emma reconcile. Sylar's feels good about his heroic turn and Lauren attempts to covers up the mess for the media. But, for the first time in Claire's life (not!) she's sick of hiding. So despite her father's plea, she draws the media's attention by climbing to the top of the ferris wheel...and jumping off.



It's a brave new world, indeed.





Well, that about wraps it up, kids. What did you think of the "Heroes" season finale? And who's hoping for another season?

(Don's note: I am)

S4E16: Pass/Fail (recap/review)

The latest episode of “Heroes” entitled “Pass/Fail” took us on a trip to an alternate reality, or rather Hiro’s subconscious thanks to his brain tumor. We saw a lot of familiar faces from previous season’s including George Takei’s return as Kaito Nakamura, and like most of you I too couldn’t get the Star Trek connection between him and Zachary Quinto out of my head. Speaking of Quinto, he returned after his blink and you missed it appearance from last week, and spent the majority of his scenes with Claire. Between multiple cameos and bad monologues this episode of “Heroes” was less than extraordinary…


The Players:

Director: Michael Nankin

Writer/Creator: Oliver Grigsby/Tim Kring

Actors: Zachary Quinto, Robert Knepper, Kate Vernon, Jack Coleman, James Kyson Lee, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Hayden Panettiere, David Anders, George Takei, Tamlyn Tomita

The Shows Plot:

“Heroes” follows a group of regular people who discover that they have special abilities that separate them from everyone else in the world. Some choose to hide their gifts, others try to use them for evil, and a rare few choose to use their powers for a greater good.



Title of this Week’s Episode: “Pass/Fail” Season 4: Episode 16

Hiro’s brain tumor causes him to slip into a coma, where he “awakens” in a dream state that features many important characters from his past. He’s put on trial for his previous transgressions, and must deal with the fall out from the decisions he’s made regarding his powers. Meanwhile, Sylar pays Claire an unexpected visit to get answers as to why he isn’t quite himself, and Samuel’s plan to impress his long-lost love, Vanessa, doesn’t go according to plan.



The Good:

David Anders: David Anders’ return as Adam Monroe was a definite plus for last night’s episode. He was an amazing villain on the show’s previous seasons and unlike Sylar he had some sort of direction. It was great to see him pop up as a prosecutor in Hiro’s dream, and how hilarious was it when he called Hiro out for reciting the opening to “Quantum Leap?”

Hiro and His Mother: The reunion between mother and son was beautifully done with dialogue and visuals. It was such a sweet moment between the two, and we finally got to see some acting range from Masi Oka.

The Bad:

Hiro’s Brain Tumor: The entire storyline surrounding Hiro’s tumor sounds like it was ripped from a bad soap opera. It’s an attempt to make Hiro less annoying and more valuable, but he still rubs me the wrong way. All of his quirks that used to be charming, have become simply irritating.

Samuel’s Seduction: Samuel’s attempts to walk down memory lane with his pseudo-girlfriend Vanessa was uncomfortable to watch. His obsession with her is unhealthy and unnatural. That’s why it was extra weird when she gave in and shared a milkshake with him. If I was her, I’d check to make sure it wasn’t laced with some type of drug.

Claire Bitches About Her Power AGAIN: Claire has been singing the same sad song about being “special,” since season one and it’s getting old. The conversation she had with Sylar-Gretchen was one big cliche. Her character refuses to show any kind of growth or development. They need to give her something better to do than whine every episode.

Overall:

“Pass/Fail” didn’t really serve a purpose for the overall story arc of this season. Sure, Hiro’s health was restored but was there any doubt in your mind that it wouldn’t be? Samuel went all Avalanche from X-Men and showed that he’s mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, and Sylar went all Dr. Phil on Claire. He ended up giving her some type of closure, but still didn’t find any for himself.



Rating: 5/10

S4E12: The Fifth Stage (Recap)

Claire and Gretchen make their way to the carnival. In hopes of finding a place for Claire to fit in, they decide to spend the night at the carnival at Samuel's insistence.

Peter is determined to find Nathan and get rid of Sylar forever. Despite Angela's concern, Peter leaves to find Nathan only to be ambushed by Sylar at the hospital. The two spar until Peter's newly gained power (from the Haitian) disables Sylar's abilities. Peter tortures Sylar until Nathan comes back.

Noah confesses his feelings for Lauren when one of Samuel's henchman attacks the pair. Noah and Lauren are unharmed, but the multiplying man leaves with Noah's files.

Upon seeing the carnival's benevolent acts, Claire's conviction begins to falter. When a human attacks Samuel, Claire drives the man away and displays her power. At the end of the night, Claire decides to spend the weekend at the carnival and Gretchen leaves.

Nathan confides in Peter that he is losing the battle with Sylar. The brothers go to the rooftop where Nathan first displayed his power. Despite Peter's insistence on Nathan's existence, Nathan jumps off the rooftop and Sylar's persona takes over.

(This is the last Heroes for 2009. After a one month break, Heroes returns on Jan 4th at 9/8 Central, after the return of Chuck)

S4E12: The Fifth Stage (Preview)

Samuel starts to see his vision take shape — H.R.G. is greeted by some unexpected visitors and Samuel's grand plan begins to come to fruition. Meanwhile, Peter struggles to accept the truth and takes extreme measures to get what he wants. Elsewhere, Claire's journey leads her to an unexpected destination...

S4E11: Thanksgiving (Recap)

Before touching Parkman’s hand and no doubt ending up with unintended consequences in Heroes Season 4 Episode 10, Nathan decided that he doesn’t exist any more because he’s becoming Sylar. Meanwhile, Suresh had his own trouble. He wasn’t killed, but he was locked up in the nuthouse.

Samuel’s got his hands on the film that he wanted now. He’s watching the part where he’s being born, a disaster waiting to happen.

Hiro wants to know where and when Charlie is. Samuel is not ready to play just yet, and Hiro can’t make him since it’s not like he can just kill the only person who knows where to find Charlie. But smile, it’s Thanksgiving.

HRG runs into Lauren at the supermarket, where he checks out some yams before inviting her for dinner.

Peter goes to visit his mom, who says that Nathan’s dead body was a shapeshifter, and Parkman is unbalanced and can’t be trusted. Not buying this story, the question is simple. Is Nathan really dead? Yeah, Nathan would like to know the answer to that, too.

Claire’s surprised to find that her dad brought a date. No, not a date. Just an old friend. Mom will understand.

Hiro is not quite ready to enjoy Thanksgiving. First of all, they don’t celebrate that in Japan. Second, Samuel is a liar liar pants on fire. If he did fix the past, though, that would lead some to believe that Joseph should still be around. They fail to realize that Samuel’s goals were more selfish than that. That said, Lydia wants to go back to eight weeks ago so she can see what happened to Joseph.

Angela tells the boys that they really did see Nathan’s body, although his mind still lives on in his current body.

As if Thanksgiving dinner isn’t awkward enough, Sandra’s boyfriend Doug suggests going around the table and saying what they’re thankful for. This can only end badly. When they get to Claire, she’s just not feeling it. She’s thinking about dropping out of school.

Back to the night Joseph died. He warns his brother that he has the power to kill millions. Because of that, he has to be controlled. It’s then that Samuel learns that Suresh was instructed to burn the film. Furthermore, a man from the government is coming to take Samuel in. Well, that’s about all that needs to be said before Joseph gets killed by his brother, which Lydia and Hiro witness.

Doug tells Claire this will all blow over. Stuff like this happens to everyone. Really? So she grabs a knife and slits her arm. Perhaps a visit from Gretchen will cheer her up.

Nathan informs his family that Sylar’s in there with him. Then a freaky light show happens. No need to get an exorcist, though. Sylar’s back. What’s for dinner?

Samuel just learned that the person who killed his brother is there sitting at the table. Edgar speaks up… Samuel is the one who murdered Joseph. The time traveler saw it. Hiro denies seeing anything. Perhaps, then, Edgar killed Joseph. Before Samuel can make Edgar suffer the same fate as his brother, Hiro freezes time, telling Edgar he has to run away to live to fight another day.

Sylar finds out that Nathan’s not so dead after all. He can control Sylar, just like Sylar controlled Parkman all that time.

After her visit with Gretchen, Claire tells her dad she’s going back to school. What she’s really doing is taking the compass she stole from him and seeing where it leads.

Peter promises his mom that he’ll find a way to get his brother alive again.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Heroes Season 4 Episode 12 The Fifth Stage, which airs Monday at 8/7c on NBC.

S4E10 Brother's Keeper (RECAP)

Original Air Date: Nov 16, 2009

Brittany D. – Staff Writer
brittany@thetwocentscorp.com

Dear NBC: Let’s not spoil your biggest cliff hangers of the season anymore in your previews for the next week’s episode, okay? It’s just a helpful suggestion!

Hiro is still trapped in the circus, and it’s because Samuel wants him to go back in time eight weeks ago to get Coyote Sands research film from Mohinder before he destroys it. We flash back to nine weeks ago and see that Mohinder is in India teaching, and he has a girlfriend who urges him to trash all of Chandra’s old research, and Mohinder obliges. Of course he goes and gets it once his girlfriend goes to bed and watches a tape reel labeled ‘Samuel’. In it, Chandra says that when more than one person with abilities is in the same room with Samuel, it causes his ability to increase in power. From the research, Mohinder is able to create a compass like the one Samuel has. Mohinder’s girlfriend says that if he disappears, she won’t wait for him. So of course…

…Mohinder goes to carnie town and talks to Joseph, who tells Mohinder that he’s kept Samuel in the dark about his ability, that he’s never told him how powerful it could be. He advises that the reel should be destroyed, and we cut to see Samuel eavesdropping on the entire conversation. He confronts Mohinder in a hotel room, demanding to know what was on the reel, but Mohinder says he’ll never tell. Samuel smashes a rock and flings the remains into Mohinder’s body and leaves, but Hiro has already appeared on scene and fitted his old pal with a bullet proof vest after switching out the reels. Mohinder says he won’t disappear for eight weeks so that Hiro can get Charlie back, so Hiro somehow gets him into a loony bin in a padded cell wearing a straight jacket, where the doctor’s mistake him for another patient and dope him unconscious.

Giving the reel to Samuel, Hiro doesn’t get Charlie back right away, and Samuel leaves to go meet with Tracy.

Nathan/Sylar is back in D.C. and Peter is with him, trying to figure out why he can’t remember a week of his life. His mother apparently smoothed things over at the office by telling everyone that Nathan was simply on vacation, but the Haitian shows up to tell Peter the truth about his brother. The Haitian gives Peter directions to a storage facility and tells him to GO ALONE, but no one in this show ever listened to directions, so of course he takes Nathan. In the facility, they find the real Nathan’s dead body. Nathan/Sylar touches his dead body and has a flash of Sylar and Matt. After figuring out that Matt is in a hospital, Peter and Nathan go to Midland and Peter heals him. Matt tries to tell them what happened, but Sylar takes over Matt’s body and tells Nathan that with a touch, it can all be over and he can be whole again.

A touch happens, but it’s just a brush, and Nathan flies away with Peter after accidentally knocking him out. He flies them to the Grand Canyon…or some Canyon, and Peter tells Nathan that he’s not leaving him alone, and they fly off together. Meanwhile, Matt is healed and mind warping a cop into giving him his clothes so that he can escape the hospital. Back in Peter’s apartment, Nathan has a sad moment when he realizes that all Peter is going to see when he looks at him is Sylar, but we never really establish what’s going on inside his head with Sylar being there.

Tracy is contemplating running away to join the circus while drinking coffee in a diner, when she gets so agitated that she accidentally freezes her coffee mug. She goes to Bennet’s but instead of finding HRG she finds Claire. Tracy’s power is going haywire, and she keeps freezing things. She freezes the steaming hot bathwater she was in, then accidentally freezes Claire solid. She breaks off Claire’s foot while trying to move her to the tub, but Claire heals and unfreezes and they share a good laugh. Tracy explains that she’s really thinking about heading to carnie town, and Claire tells her she should do it, if she thinks that’s what’s best for her. HRG walks in with groceries, sees Claire’s still frozen foot on the table (she’s since grown a new one) and asks how their day was. It really was the best part of the episode.
(Have not seen, but this is what Heroes has been sorely missing, humor and sight gags based on the abilities).

As previously mentioned, she does meet with Samuel, hoping to run away from her old life to a place where she’ll be accepted.

Okay, bottom line – I want to stop time hopping and get to the bottom of these two story lines of Nathan/Sylar and Samuel. Can I please just get Sylar back to his badassness? No more of this Nathan stuff. And unless the Samuel story line is going to be wrapped up in a really cool twist, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to have much more to offer. And, sorry Hiro, but I’m pretty sure that Charlie is somewhere else: a place called FOX on a show called Glee.

V S1S2 There's No Normal Anymore (recap)

http://www.hulu.com/watch/108493/v-recap-theres-no-normal-anymore#s-p1-sr-i1

GET TO KNOW YOUR NEW ALIEN INVADERS — ER, NEIGHBORS!
In advance of the main course of recap, I offer an appetizer platter of observations — three things we learned about The Visitors in last night's V.

THEY'RE EARLY! Gone-native alien Ryan (Morris Chestnut) — needing a patch for the painful rip to his human skin suit sustained during last week's ill-fated resistance confab — sought help from a fellow incognito ET named Angelo. As the mechanic-cum-surgeon squirted Fasting Acting Miracle-Gro Flesh gel into Ryan's gash with a Flash Gordon cocking gun, their conversation turned to the monolithic star destroyers parked in Earth's atmosphere. Newsflash! Those mothers ain't supposed to be here… yet. The timetable was accelerated. Why?

THEY'VE GOT THEIR OWN GITMO! Marcus (Christopher Shyer), second in command to alien leader Anna (Morena Baccarin), tortured a would-be member of The Resistance at an undisclosed, dramatically lit location. The Vs' version of water-boarding: stripping you down to your bulging cod piece, then strapping you to a giant porcelain birdbath (or bidet; you choose) and casting illusions of your worst fears on your tummy. In this poor rebel's case: snakes. The lingering question: Is Anna aware of these clandestine renditions and black site beat-downs — or is Marcus running a conspiracy behind her exquisitely dressed back? Bolstering the latter possibility:

ANNA AND MARCUS DON'T SEE EYE-TO-FLUTTERY EYE ON HOW TO SERVE MANKIND Anna had a sharp exchange with Marcus while flipping though a holographic catalogue of Earthly couture. She selected a white kimono and coolly noted, '''I'm told in Japan this both conveys the respect of tradition and the allure of submission.'' Marcus: ''I'm not sure that's the message you want to send.'' Anna shot him a withering gaze. ''You still don't understand humanity.'' Talk of ''submission'' is the kind of thing we'd expect to hear from diabolical reptilian monsters intent on dosing mankind with paralyzing kindness and then eating us alive for dinner. But if you believe as I do that Anna is a sincere reformer determined to improve our woeful condition, we could also interpret her to mean that engaging Earthlings and coaxing them to change requires tact and deference. Regardless, Marcus didn't agree. My guess is that he regards humanity as a planet of damn dirty apes that need to whipped and rifle-butted into being obedient little monkeys. Schism! Shades of: The Jacob/Man in Black debate about rehabbing and managing unruly, sinful man in the season finale of Lost. [This recap's obligatory forced Lost connection has now been fulfilled.]

Having dazzled us last week with extravagant spaceships and enticingly exotic extra-terrestrials, V's second episode scaled back the pricy pseudo-cinematic ambition and shifted to a more sustainable gear — a Trust No One paranoid thriller like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, tailored for a culture coached to worry about sleeper cells in the suburbs. (Be honest: How many of you really sweat that?) Where the pilot was briskly paced and meaty with ideas, ''There Is No Normal Anymore'' was slow and small and missing much of the Big Picture musing on the Vs' global impact that gave this otherwise ho-hum alien invasion yarn its promising point of distinction. Yeah, there was a throwaway line here and there about an alien-inspired psychotherapy boom or geopolitical significance of the United States, but I wanted more, and I was disappointed. All week, ABC promoted V with the Muse song ''Uprising,'' which I thought was a perfect fit: this new V should be mythic and melodramatic, politically charged and comic book fantastic, brilliantly produced and raucously thrilling. Alas, ''… No Normal Anymore'' didn't quite get there. This show needs to be more interesting, more fun — Battlestar Galactica, but with less bleakness. (Not that bleak can't be fun. In fact, in my more pessimistic moods about V, I nurture the fantasy of NBC pulling the now-complete BSG out of mothballs and putting it up V. If broadcast TV is really that interested in politically charged, philosophically provocative humans vs. aliens sci-fi saga, why not show them — and V — how it should be done?)

For now, I watch on faith, buoyed by glimmers of hope. Elizabeth Mitchell can make me believe in anything. The Visitors — embodied by inscrutable Anna — continue to be a metaphor and mystery worthy of parsing and theorizing. My take: Anna is sincere about wanting to bring peace, love, and universal health care to the world — but her advisors are conspiring against her. (A lengthy elaboration of this theory, complete with time travel head-hurtyness, can be found at the close of this recap.) And has the subject of V's much-discussed political subtext shifted? Forget the Obama allegory. After last night, I'm now wondering if Anna = NaIve Commander-in-Chief and Marcus = Hawkish Vice President Who's Puppet-Mastering His Boss From His Secret Torture Chamber Bunker. I'm not trying to ruffle Left or Right feathers — I'm just saying that I suspect V is engineered to reflect the political energies of the whole decade, not just the past year.

NEXT: A priest and an FBI agent walk into a bar...
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20318975,00.html

S4E9; SHADOWBOXING (RECAP)

Another week, another episode! Previously, Sylar switched places with Matt so that he’s in control of his body, Peter got a nifty new healing ability, and Gretchen was almost murdered by Rebecca who is part of carnie town.
Gretchen and Claire lie to their new sorority sisters when they freak out after seeing Claire heal and Becky disappear right in front of them. Their lie: That the hazing must have included drugging their water. Gretchen and Claire are left alone, and the former says that she is definitely not okay with trying to be killed. Claire calls her dad who brings along the Haitian and wipes the sorority girl’s minds while Gretchen stays alone in the dorm room. The Haitian tags along with Claire while HRG searches Rebecca’s room, and Claire gets to the dorm in time to see Gretchen packing a bag. It’s all just a little bit too freaky for her and she leaves; the Haitian following to make sure she’s safe. As soon as Claire’s alone, Samuel shows up.

Samuel tells Claire that it’s easier to relate to people when they’re just like you, which is why he started the carnival. At the same time he tries to recruit Claire, HRG is confronted by Becky. She tells him that he killed her father while she hid under the bed and watched the whole thing go down. She says that she wished that no one would find her and that was when her ability to turn invisible manifested itself, but she never understood why she couldn’t wish for her dad to be okay. In revenge, she’s going to hurt both HRG and Claire. Before she can, someone comes looking for her and she disappears. HRG leaves and makes it back to Claire’s dorm just in time to meet Samuel and hear his pitch to Claire.

HRG winds up taking Samuel into custody (can he do that now? Where was he even planning on taking him?) so that he can get answers about the compass. In all likelihood, it points people in the direction of the carnival, but before we can find out for sure Becky shows up. She’s going to try and kill HRG, but Samuel tazers her. HRG literally pushes Claire to the ground, but she begs him not to hurt Becky and Samuel, and together they run away. Claire gives HRG that look. He walks her back to her dorm and that night she looks longingly at Gretchen’s side of the room. Did I mention she’d told her roommate that she was too important to lose and that everything’s been charged with what the writers hope is unresolved sexual tension? Yeah.

Sylar is taking Matt and his body to New York. Sylar taunts Matt, but it’s Matt who has the last laugh because he’s planted his service revolver in his suitcase. The metal detector goes off, and Sylar tries to use Matt’s ability. “You may be able to control my body but I will NEVER let you control my ability.” Sylar is taken into custody screaming that he’s a cop. Four hours later they’re on their way only to get a flat tire. Matt’s getting a little too confident in his razzing of Sylar though, and when a nice guy pulls over to help them, Sylar kills him. Matt rages that Sylar just killed a man, and Sylar turns the tables: “No, I didn’t. You did.” He tells Matt that he’s in charge and can kill anyone, anywhere, so no more roadblocks on the way to find Peter Petrelli for answers.

They stop at the Burnt Toast Diner and Sylar tells Matt that he tried to kill a waitress there once, and when Matt won’t tell him what happened to his body, he decides to start killing people. Matt finally relents at that prospect and tells Sylar everything while Sylar doodles on a napkin. Sylar says that now he’s going to find Nathan, then kill everyone involved with his body swap. Before he can do that, the police show up. Matt used his ability to make Sylar doodle that he was going to kill everyone. In order to keep HRG, Angela Petrelli et al safe, he makes Sylar motion to draw a weapon and the police shoot him about six times in the chest, killing him.

(THANKS, NBC PROMO DEPARTMENT FOR THAT SPOILER ALERT. SURE WAS NIFTY.)

There’s been a massive train crash, and Peter is going around saving lives, but every time he heals someone, it drains his energy. Emma watches the chaos in the E.R., and when doctors get to be too busy, she starts stitching a patient up, much to Peter’s surprise. She tells him he should stop using his ability if it effects him this way, and he scoffs that then he’d just be ordinary. She finally confesses to him that she dropped out of med school after her nephew drowned while she was babysitting. After she saves a little girl’s life, Peter convinces her to give med school another chance. When Peter gets home, Sylar/Nathan shows up, having woken up in carnie town with Nathan’s face and flying out before anybody saw him.

S4E8: Once Upon A Time In Texas (recap)

From http://www.hitfix.com/:

When "Heroes" deals with ordinary people dealing with extraordinary abilities, the results are hit and miss. But when it deals with the intricacies of time travel, it almost always rushes headfirst into a brick wall of fail. Tonight's episode, "Once Upon a Time in Texas," shows another version of the fateful day before Peter Petrelli saved the cheerleader and (temporarily) saved the world in Season 1. What transpired tonight was unfortunately little more than another example in the ever-expanding saga of "Hiro Never, Ever Learns."

The best part of tonight's episode? (Besides learning Samuel killed Mohinder, singlehandedly turning him from the show's villain to Ultimate Champion?) Charlie calling Hiro out for his selfish behavior in trying to go back in time in order to save her life. We (as well as Hiro) already know about her aneurysm from Season 1's "Six Months Ago," in which his original attempt to save her life lost to her brain clot. How that death means she's alive in this particular iteration of the past is anyone's guess, as "Heroes" has never much subscribed to the "whatever happened, happened" theory that "Lost" tends to espouse. Theirs is more, "whatever happens this week, happens this week."

Attending to Hiro's potentially apocalyptic lovelorn mission is Samuel, sent back in time by a dying Arnold to make sure Hiro doesn't render the time-space fabric asunder and create the type of horrific world in which dogs and cats cohabitate. (Mass hysteria, I hear.) Samuel intuits the loopholes created by Hiro's meddling, and helps the Nakamura correct those errors so that Hiro can achieve his dream of living happily ever after. What follows is a complicated set of cause-and-effect, by the end of which roughly eight Hiros were one step behind the other, each making sure to pick up the slack left by the previous iteration. It's like "Primer" with subtitles and Knight Rider t-shirts. No wonder time travel gives Hiro and Arnold tumors: I'm developing one just trying to understand what's going on.

Hiro's plan to save Charlie? Tease Sylar with tales of the future in exchange for the removal of Charlie's aneurysm. I must confess that seeing pure, unadulterated, Season 1 Sylar again made me more than a little happy. The way he mentally toyed with Charlie early in the episode reminded me a touch of Adelle Dewitt in the latest, greatest episode of "Dollhouse," slipping in menacing threats amidst nominally banal conversation. But I don't need to pour through my Season 1 DVDs to know that Sylar at this point was more of a "slice first, ask questions later" kinda guy. While I enjoyed Hiro using his power to counter Sylar's telekinesis, Sylar's agreeing to help Charlie reeked more of weekly plot need rather than consistent characterization. Would a later iteration of Sylar agreed? Probably. But that Sylar's a long way from the Burnt Toast Café.

Similarly, Charlie's forgiveness of Hiro for his "selfish" actions in saving her at the expense rang false. Her earlier condemnation? As mentioned before: totally accurate, and completely earned. Charlie would be unable to live with the guilt, and would want to distance herself as far from him as possible in the aftermath. Hiro's stunned to learn this, somehow forgetting her peace with death in "Six Months Ago" in much the same way that Hiro always, always forgets the most important warnings about his God-like abilities. Rather than accept the (borrowed) moments they had, Hiro has now condemned her to a life quite literally stuck in time. What time? Only Samuel knows, using Arnold's dying breaths to put her somewhere only he knows in order to control the younger, more powerful time manipulator. (My guess? In the plague-filled future along with Peter's Irish girlfriend, Caitlin. OK, that's not so much a theory as fanfic. But the line's sooo close, you know?)

So Hiro's now stuck working for Samuel, undoubtedly a hell for him. And since I had to spend nearly a third of this episode watching Elisabeth Röhm's Lauren making moon eyes at Noah Bennett, I can speak about hell from a personal perspective. I'm guessing her character is single because she thinks things like "handing a guy a motel room key 37 hours before his daughter is destined to die" is a smooth move. I'm not the biggest Röhmaniac or anything, but I don't think any actress could have taken on this character and made it non-groanworthy.

Now, I'm all for filling in the gaps through the clever revisiting of familiar scenes. But seeing Noah Bennett recontextualized so brilliantly in "Company Man" made this particular iteration all the more painful. I get that the stress of his dual life made his home life difficult, and clearly these flashbacks were designed to foreshadow the domestic problems that he faces in the show's present. But would the same man that begged (and then forced) Isaac to paint the future high then spend precious Sylar-seeking minutes telling a fellow Company employee the equivalent of, "It's not you, it's me"? Exactly. All filler, no killer.

At episode's end, we're left with our first substantial glimpse into Samuel's actions: his apparent murder of Mohinder. Now, you might rightfully ask, "Does the show seriously want to think that this entire volume is about saving one of the show's most historically loathed characters?" It's doubtful that Samuel feels guilt over Mohinder's death, except as insofar as Captain Voiceover's brain probably contained the only cure for that which afflicted and eventually killed Samuel's brother, Joseph. If I have this right, Samuel needs Hiro to take him back to keep Mohinder alive so that Joseph may live. Which means more Mohinder is on the way. Plus more time travel. It's like a geeky, anti-Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

It's hard for this volume of "Heroes" to get much momentum if it's constantly skipping around in time. The past few weeks actually built up a little bit of steam, but this episode just stopped the whole mess dead in its tracks. If, as Charlie said, 300,000 people die each day, why does Joseph's matter so much? Is Samuel simply selfish, wanting his brother back by his side? Hopefully not. It's one thing to humanize a villain by giving him a recognizable motivation. It's another to make his concerns so small that watching him tear down the world to achieve it seems the height of overcompensating.

In short, We're risking going from "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World," to "Save The Brother, Save the Carnival." Not exactly the most compelling rewriting of history.

Heroes - Episode 4-7 Review

By Matt Basilo - October 27, 2009 Email the author
If there was ever a “filler” episode of Heroes, this was it. However, “filler” is decidedly different from “stalling,” so I’ll chalk this up as the lesser of two evils. Normally episodes such as these are a necessary evil when it comes to properly pacing the season, however with such a large cast with so many stories going on, it’s admittedly a bit tough to defend.

I suppose if there was any “A” story, it was Sylar’s continued haunting of Parkman. I will admit that I found it somewhat funny that this entire time Parkman has been pretending to be a recovering addict, and then in the end alcohol ended up overcoming his proverbial demon. And, actually, I enjoyed the climatic reveal that Sylar had officially taken over Parkman’s body. However, I can’t help but be disappointed that they’ve really missed out on the fun dichotomy of Sylar’s consciousness living in Parkman’s body, and Nathan’s consciousness living in Sylar’s body. Instead, we’ve just got this massive overexposure of Sylar. He is just all over the place.

But man, did I ever cringe when Parkman called Mohinder.

I’ve repeatedly stated that Ali Larter is the weakest link of the Heroes cast. For whatever reason, they just can’t make any of her characters work in the series. But, as I’ve noted, I’ve really, really enjoyed this progressive bond between her and HRG (yeah, you heard me). After all, these are pretty much the only two characters who are expressing the “redemption” portion of this volume. They’ve been a pretty fun pair. And, for the most part, I still feel that way. However, this whole thing with Tracy getting drawn to the carnival is a tad too reminiscent of what we saw last season, with Tracy joining up with that volume’s lead antagonist, Papa Petrelli. As I’ve indicated with Sylar, we don’t need to see the same characters having the same struggle over and over again.

And that’s why I continue to dig HRG – he’s one of the few characters that legitimately seems to grow as a person. I buy that he wants to make up for his past mistakes, and I thought his performance this week was really strong. He genuinely wanted to help Jeremy, and you could really feel HRG’s pain when he discovered Jeremy’s body.

Not much to say about the Claire/Gretchen thing, except that four girls seems like an awfully small pledge class, doesn’t it? Seriously, though, I was a bit relieved we didn’t have to sit through Claire and Gretchen going through some super duper awkward phase where they avoid each other and pretend like nothing happened for a gabillion episodes. No, I don’t think Claire will end up being a lesbian, but I was glad she handled the situation with such straight forward maturity.

I’d hate to sound overly negative, but I’m having a lot of trouble getting into this whole carnival thing. Personally, I’m more interested in the redemption aspect of this season, instead of force feeding a plot point that will eventually bring the characters together. This is one of the cases where the build has been a bit too slow. We’re a few episodes in, and I feel like I have no real understanding of who these people are. Or their motivations, for that matter. They may be manipulative, but are they decidedly evil? And without that distinction, I don’t find myself particularly invested in who does and doesn’t decide to join them.

What I think we need is a “Company Man” type episode that focuses solely on the carnival crew. And we need that soon.

Matt Basilo has been writing for Inside Pulse since April 2005, providing his insight into popular television shows such as Lost, 24, Heroes, and Smallville. You can visit his blog at [a case of the blog].

S4E4: Acceptance (Recap)

The cliché, “Those that forget their past are doomed to repeat it,” got a solid work-out in a surprisingly solid episode of “Heroes” tonight. Then again, once one saw the phrase “Written by Bryan Fuller” come on-screen during the opening credits, many a fan’s eye lit up from their dull, habitual gaze and perked up for the first time since…well, since Fuller last wrote an episode.

Is Bryan Fuller the answer to not only quality television, but global warming, the Middle East conflict, and Nickelback’s reign of terror atop the Billboard charts? Unlikely, despite what many a critic might have you think. But he knows how to breathe life into the characters of “Heroes” that eludes the majority of the show’s writing staff. His scripts take stale characters and invigorate them to the point where you remember when you couldn’t wait to see the outcome of the previous cliffhanger. And tonight’s episode, “Acceptance,” featured one hell of a cliffhanger.

I’m taking what they’re giving/Cuz I’m working for a living

Tracy and Noah find themselves in the unfortunate place of being unemployed during these tough economic times. And yes, they do seem to exist in our world, courtesy of a quick mention of the economy on Claire’s behalf. A simple move to place the show’s world into ours, it was a nice touch to remind the audience of the show’s original conceit: a look at super powered people in our own world.

Both are simultaneously overqualified and underqualified. Noah mockingly calls himself a “company man” (a nice shout-out to the show’s best episode, the Fuller-penned “Company Man” in Season 1), but reminds a supportive Claire that his vast experience in Primatech Paper couldn’t land him a job at Dunder Mifflin. As for Tracy: she’s got brains, but all Governor Malden cares about is going upstairs and “mak[ing] each other happy.” Apparently, Governor Malden learned his pickup lines from Borat.

Both characters are driven by their professional ambition, but both realize that the professions they have inhabited no longer fulfill them. In fact, their previous jobs disgust them. I could have gone without Tracy’s life almost literally going down the drain during an emotional meltdown, but overall I bought the connection between these two much more than in the volume’s opening hours. Tracy and Noah hopefully will have new purpose going forth, a prospect that seemingly frightens Big Bad Samuel. Good. I remember when Noah wasn’t Noah, but HRG. HRG used to scared me. Happy to see if he can do it again.

(Also, kudos to “Heroes” for containing scenes involving Claire that didn’t make me want to bang my head against the wall repeatedly. That’s a super power in and of itself.)

If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting/Time after time

Oh, Hiro. Season 1’s audience on-screen conduit to the fantastical has devolved into fanboy punching bag over the years. Too many antics, too much grating behavior, and too many times where he violates common sense in order to give the show some sort of conflict. So what happens this week? He gets humanized, and I feel for the character for the first time in ages.

Now, I’m not a fan of Hiro’s sudden desire to micro-manage the past in order to achieve results on an individual level. (See: “violates common sense.”) But since the show’s already sent Hiro down Route Sixty-Suck, presenting the potential futility of this tactic was a fantastic way to insert humor into Hiro’s storyline without making him a pathetic clown. His constant attempts to prevent a fellow coworker (Tadashi) from self-destructing fail, leading to 47 timelines in which Tadashi manages to photocopy his posterior using company property.

For Hiro, the answers lie in the past. After all, if one redirected Slurpee yields love for Ando and Kimiko, why couldn’t other redirections yield beneficial results? However, Hiro’s “Groundhog Day”-esque quest only ends when he accepts Tadashi’s intrinsic nature, not habitually fighting it at different points in the past. He correctly diagnoses Tadashi’s fetish as a cry for new employment, a revelation that sends Hiro to the one place he’s avoided: Kimiko’s office to tell her of his terminal illness.

Props to “Heroes” for showing us the introduction to that reveal, but not the actual revelation itself. The scene played more powerfully through Ando’s eyes that it would have up close, a moment of rare restraint for a show that not only tells instead of shows, but usually uses giant blinking neon signs when telling. After Hiro’s confession, his eyes go blank and he disappears, leaving Ando to clue his wife-to-be onto the source of Hiro’s malady.

Nightswimming…deserves a quiet night

Let’s liken Hiro’s decision to subtly change the past despite having first-hand evidence at just how catastrophic that could be to, say, a beer. Using that as our base point, Angela’s decision to cage Sylar inside the mental and physical likeness of her deceased son Nathan is a keg. A big, frothy, stupid keg of stupidity. I fashion Fuller for a whiskey guy myself that looked at the crappy keg and decided to kill it before leaving the show for greener pastures in the land of development deals.

In order to reboot Sylar’s brain into more of a Nathan-centric perspective, she brings a box to his office containing mementos from Nathan’s childhood. Since his shapeshifting ability works based on absorbing memories from physical objects, the mementos do a nice job of shoving actual memories into Sylar’s brain. Unfortunately for all involved, one of those memories details a dead woman floating in a pool, surrounded by chlorine and blood.

Turns out that woman is the daughter of Angela’s friend Millie Houston, a character briefly seen last season during “Fugitives.” Awesome to see Swoozie Kurtz used for more than a bizarre five minute scene. While Angela used the Haitian to wipe the actual Nathan’s mind from this memory, the Sylar-as-Nathan felt compelled to rip open the scab of history through what Peter calls “psychometrics” to triangulate his own guilt, reaffirm Millie’s long-held suspicions, and land Sylar-as-Nathan stabbed, shot, and buried alive thanks to a hit ordered by Mama Houston. Well, you know what they say about no good deed…

…but wait! Not unlike the poor in “Monty Python and Holy Grail,” Sylar’s not dead yet! It was cool enough when a hand stuck up through the ground, but to see Sylar’s face appear next? Groovy. Not sure if this means the end of Adrian Pasdar on “Heroes” or not, but it was a fantastic reminder of just how insanely cool the cliffhangers for this show used to be. I’m not sure any of this makes a lick of sense, but for the first time in a while, I’m just anxious for the next episode. It’ll probably bring me back down to earth, but at least for one week, I’m happy I’ve stuck with this show for so long.

What way is the compass pointing for you when it comes to “Heroes”? You sticking to the path, or have the circus already long left town?

S4 E3 Ink (Episode and recap)

Sylar pushes Matt to his limit, a grieving Samuel ventures beyond the carnival in search of Peter, Claire resolves to be truthful, and a new hero discovers her unique ability.



Last week I praised the arrival of Peter Petrelli: Working Class Hero. This week I bemoan the return of Peter Petrelli: Pretty Boy Tool. Seems like Samuel has a particular interest in Peter due to his own brother being an empath himself. At least, that's the impression I got after watching that subdermal compass go all a flutter an episode's end.

It's clear Samuel just doesn't let any ol' superpowered person into his fold. Instead, they have to pass what amounts to a moral test in order to be deemed worthy of inclusion. One man's morality is another man's depravity, so all things are relative. But Samuel, like all villains worth giving a damn about, doesn't actually consider himself a villain. Until recently, that might have even approximated the truth from an objective perspective. But it's clear that Joseph's death has sent him over the edge upon which he danced for so long.

So Samuel establishes a false lawsuit against Peter, stores up some specially made Sullivan Brothers Psychic Ink, and goes to work on Peter's mind. Then again, Samuel didn't have to manually Photoshop himself into one of Peter's pinned-up articles in order to make Peter doubt his own brain. I'm sure a Sudoku would have broken him just as easily. In any case, Peter apologizes to Samuel, unaware that the apology is itself "proof" for Samuel that he's found a suitable heir for his brother's ability.

Before heading back to the circus, Samuel makes a quick visit back to the home in which he grew up. Turns out he and Joseph lived in a carriage house, the offspring of a wealthy family's hired help. When denied entrance to his old home by the current tenant, he does the sensible thing and sinks the freakin' house. In case you didn't get it, this was the "Our Villain's Only a Villain Because People Didn't Love Him Enough as a Child" move they pulled on Sylar last year. And we all know how awesome THAT worked out.

As for the compass itself: it's unclear what it actually points towards, nor why empaths in particular are appropriate vessels for it. The show already has Lydia as its human version of Cerebro, so I'm unclear what added value is gained by the compass itself. My initial guess is that while Samuel creates ink out of earthen materials he can manipulate, there's something about an empath's power that focuses it and makes it usable for a specific purpose. Does the compass point to a place? A person? A cohesive plotline that won't have me banging my head against the wall by mid-volume? I'll let you, gentle reader, weigh in below.

Two-time touch and broken bones/Mirror in the bathroom

I can't even tell you how sick I am of the on-again, off-again relationship between Noah and Claire Bennet. It's this show's version of Ross and Rachel, but with much less making out. There's no earthly reason these two should re-hash the same talking points over and over again. And yet, on a seasonal basis, these two come together and split apart for the sole purpose of once again placing Claire in a position of danger.

Essentially, we're supposed to swallow that one game of "Guitar Hero" means Claire can call Gretchen her BFF. Well, my wife and I own "Rock Band." We play it all the time. And she doesn't even know as much about me as Gretchen now knows about Claire. We're literally weeks removed from the end of a plot in which superpowered people were sent to internment camps, and we're supposed to be OK with Claire revealing herself to someone who is essentially a stranger?

If you've seen this story before, and trust me, you have, then you know Noah's whole "I trust you" speech is a big fat lie. Unfortunately, 1) this makes us not like Noah, who is lying to his daughter, and 2) not like Claire, because we understand that Claire's judgement cannot be trusted. And meanwhile, it's only a matter of time before Gretchen's posting her own YouTube videos of her new roomie healing after cutting herself in the shower. I'm sooo looking forward to more "Single White Superhero," trust me.

Church of the poison mind/I think I'm paranoid
OK, let me just say that all my Evil Parkman dreams started to come true tonight. While I'm preparing myself to be disappointed in the eventual outcome, and wish the show focused more on Samuel as this Season's Big Bad without diluting the evil pool with Sylar's continued presence, I really enjoyed everything inside that dilapidated house.

When deployed properly, the ability to alter a person's mind is perhaps the most potent (and terrifying) power of all. You can argue until you're blue in the face that Sylar is actually the Sylar we know or just a byproduct of Parkman's guilty conscience, but you can't deny there was a realness to the cold look in that dead girl's eyes under the stairs. The fact that she was only a delusion should have taken away the power of the scene, but instead only validated the depths to which Parkman's mind can sink. This was one fake out that "Heroes" did deliciously.

The only problem with this storyline? I'm worried about its connection back to the carnival plot. Sure, we saw Sylar's face on Lydia's back next week. Does that mean that a psychic inside the carnival is working his/her mojo on Parkman in order to break Sylar-as-Nathan free? Seems like a complicated way to go about that change. Easier to just mind-frak the faux Senator back to life (back to reality), right?

Parkman's dark side is a fantastic little story, but only ultimately works if it ties into the volume as a whole, not as a stand-alone piece. The show may just be taking its time in allowing Samuel to gradually recruit all existing heroes one by one, but it needs to assure us that each piece of the seemingly disparate puzzle indeed connects. Moreover, it needs to explain sooner, not later, exactly why Samuel needs so many new members in his faction.

Ultraviolet (light my way)/Good vibrations

A possible way to tie everything together into one melodic whole? Emma, the show's first deaf superpowered character. Say what you will about the show's quality, but you can never fault their diversity in casting and in character. She's just developing her powers, which seem to manifest themselves in the realm of sound vibrations and the electromagnetic spectrum. Maybe these powers will develop into something cool, but for now they resemble something akin to an iPod commercial.

However, her ability to intuitively play the cello might also play a part in countering the effects of Peter's compass. I'm probably reading waaaay too much into this, but in Emma's ability to emit a sort of siren call with her music, I got a strong Mother Abigail vibe from her. The compass can't draw people in; it can only point to their direction. Samuel has to go TO those he wishes to find. It's possible that Emma will be the end of the rainbow for the side of good as the battle lines are drawn in "Redemption."

Or, you know, she'll get a job working Disney's Electric Light Parade. With "Heroes," nothing is ever truly out of the realm of possibility. Even if we desperately wished it could be.
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2009-1-13-monkeys-as-critics/posts/recap-heroes-ink