Better Halves: Heroes Ep 6

 Lots of stories came to a point of conflict in this episode. Hiro and Ando get told by Peter that a Hiro from the future said: "Save the cheerleader, save the world" only no one knows where to find the cheerleader. 

In Issac's loft, Peter and Issac try to find out if there's a clue in the paintings about who the cheerleader might be, only there's a painting missing and Simone probably took it to sell, so Peter leaves to try and get it back.

Back in the car with Hiro and Ando, the guy they cheated decides they're going to cheat for him to get his money back. At the game, Ando sees a gun under the tables and drags Hiro away. While they're gone, something or someone attacks and the guys at the game are all killed horribly. 

DL shows himself to Niki and tells her he's about to get the name of the woman who double crossed him and stole the money after killing his men. Then, as the two of them wake up, DL tells Niki she kept getting up the night before. When DL goes to meet the guys who can clear his name, it ends up being that same poker game.

Hiro is ashamed that he couldn't save the men at the poker game. He says hiding is not heroic. Ando tells him that maybe he'll bend time and come back to save them. This is the first time I kind of like Ando as a character.

Mohinder leaves to go back and (Evie?) the neighbor girl tries to talk him out of it. After she fails, she calls Claire's dad who still doesn't have a name.  Turns out she was a plant the whole time (big surprise). She tells him about everything Peter told Mohinder, including the message from the future about saving the cheerleader, then asks what she should do with the precog (Issac) and he tells her to bring him in.

Niki tells DL that she's seen men torn apart like that before, in their garage and that she thinks she did it. He thinks she's being set up until Micah says that she has a secret power too. That's when DL catches Niki retrieving the stolen money. She attacks him and he reveals an ability to phase through objects (how he escaped from prison), which he uses to incapacitate her and he takes Micah away even though Micah clearly doesn't want to go.

I think the reveal that DL has this power shows a couple things, mainly, why Niki's other personality is afraid he will kill her despite her super strength, and why she chose to set him up rather than kill him (although that might partly be on Micah's behalf since both personalities clearly want to protect him).

Claire's dad claims to have found her birth parents and arranges a meeting. Claire is kind of hoping to find answers about what is happening to her, but after talking to them, they seem way too normal. Then Claire's mom tells her that they tried to find her bio parents when she was a baby because they thought she had some kind of disease. Claire pushes for answers but her mom just says it was a bad cough. Claire's dad is going to leave for business again and they hug goodbye but Claire has obviously decided that he's lying about having found her bio parents. As they hug, her fake smile drops and she gets a serious look on her face.

Overall this episode was good for a mid season climax. Matt didn't appear, but all the other main characters had some kind of pivotal point in their journey. Sylar still hasn't shown his face and I'm starting to think maybe we won't see it until near the end of the season. I'm rating this one a 7/10. The story and character progression was good, but there weren't any heartwrenching or warming parts that made it especially stand out. There was a bit of chemistry between Niki and DL but it still felt a bit forced (maybe that's what they were going for, though). Good acting from the kid who played Micah, though. Very believable reaction to walking in on his parents physically fighting and then being dragged away from the scene by one of them after the other has been knocked unconscious. 

Apologies

Just a quick note to let you know that I will start posting my regular blogs again next week. This week I just couldn't make the time for it. I noticed a sudden surge of views on some of my recent posts so if you're new here, hi. Welcome. Hope you like what you're reading. Without any interaction, I can't tell if the views are from fans or haters, so I'm going to be hopeful and think someone liked what I posted and encouraged others to come read it as well. I have started watching the new season of Haunted Hotel (also on Netflix) so I may begin blogging about that show too, not sure yet. Right now, since this blog is purely for fun (and to stretch my writing skills) I need to focus most of my time on more fruitful endeavors. Like many people, I've been in financial straits recently. Google Adsense still says this blog is "low quality" whatever that means, so unless someone at Netflix wants to sponsor me (pretty please?) it'll stay that way. Lots of love, catch you next week.

Veronica Mars: Ep 4, The Wrath of Con

 The case au de jour this time was recovering money from a couple of con artists. Sprinkled throughout this were memories of Lilly since the episode was building up to a memorial as her family donated a fountain dedicated to her memory to the school. Logan (the psycho I mentioned earlier) volunteers to create a memorial video since he used to by Lilly's boyfriend. He's going to compile it using tapes of her throughout her childhood that have been provided by her parents. As he's watching them, he laments to Veronica that these tapes show a whitewashed version of Lilly, not who she really was.

The con artists are college students who are super smart gamer types. Veronica finds them by pretending to be a prospective mark. It turns out that the person who meets up with her to get the money is an actor who has been told this is all part of a TV show called Duped, which supposedly is a candid camera show that films people falling for dumb scams. Veronica finds out that the calls were placed from a payphone in a gamer bar. She visits, finds someone with a similar gamer name to the email address the con email came from, gets him to out himself by joining his team and then repeatedly killing him, then steals his license so she can learn more info about him. She finds out he goes to this prestigious tech school, so she and Walter pretend that Walter is a math nerd thinking about joining when he gets out of high school. Oh, did I mention that the client who hired Veronica just happens to be the girl that Walter has a huge crush on?

They attend the prospective student party and Veronica gets guests to talk about the con artist and his roommate. She finds out a lot of things, then goes to the dorm room and learns that they have an alarm that alerts the boys cell phone if the code isn't entered in time. Veronica's dad poses as a DEA agent to gain access to the boys' dorm room and plant a bug while supposedly looking for drugs. Then Veronica listens in and figures out the alarm code when they leave by counting the number of tones when they set it.

In the flashbacks of Lilly, Veronica is remembering the day all four of them (her and Duncan, Lilly and her boyfriend) were supposed to go to the homecoming dance but instead used the limo to hang out and drink all night, filming themselves playing truth or dare. During the course of this, Veronica admits she's never gone skinny dipping which Lilly says they're going to have to change. This is important for how the episode ends. The reason Veronica is having flashbacks of Lilly isn't because of the memorial (at least not entirely) it is because of the homecoming dance, which her new boyfriend is planning on taking her to.

Back on the case, Veronica breaks into the gamer dude's dorm and steals their hard drives (including the back-up which she almost doesn't discover in time). She gets them out of the way by luring them into showing Walter around campus pretending to offer free tickets to play a game they've been excited to play. She does this because it turns out the guys have developed a game using the money they scammed people for as their start-up cost. Since they didn't have investors, the boys stood to make millions. After ransoming the drives for the money they scammed from Walter's crush, they give the boys back their drives. As they're walking away, Veronica tells the others that she informed the FBI about the boys' scam, so they're not going to just get away with it.

Since Logan complained, Veronica shows up with the tape of Lilly made on Homecoming night, the night when their parents were worried and stayed up all night. When they get home, Lilly's mom reads her the riot act even though both her kids were out (kinda shows she has a preference). At the memorial, as the tape plays showing that Logan used the tape showing Lilly's wild side we pan to several people's reactions. Based on Jake's reaction, I don't think he's the killer. He was smiling at this memory of his daughter's true self. The mom, however. I totally suspect her now.

The show ends with Veronica and her new boyfriend along with Walter and the girl they helped riding in a limo to homecoming. Veronica asks them to pull over along the beach because there's something she needs to do. She tells the boyfriend that he needs to stay in the limo. She then proceeds to go skinny dipping as a way of honoring Lilly's memory.

I liked this one, but it wasn't my favorite. I enjoyed Walter having a love interest and getting to see a new side of his friendship with Veronica. Glad they didn't make Walter's interest in Veronica romantic. That would have been a bit lame. There was a moment where Veronica's dad meets her boyfriend for the first time when he comes to pick her up for mini golf. Veronica's dad asks if they're planning on doing anything besides just go to the dance and puts some fear into the boy when he responds that since they're planning on just going to the dance and coming straight home afterward, the boyfriend won't mind that he (Veronica's dad) canceled the hotel reservation he (the boyfriend) made for that night. I want to take a moment to talk about the relationship between Veronica and her dad. It feels like your typical TV father/daughter dynamic with the added touch of both of them knowing they can't lie to the other because they're both too good at discovering the truth. They have some conflict, but he seems to really care about Veronica and want to protect her. There is something sus about Veronica's mom, though, and why she might want to hide from him.

This episode did feature a drunken kiss between Lilly and Veronica during the truth or dare game, after which Logan makes a fetishistic remark. I didn't really like that part very much, although it is very on brand for shows during this time period to have two straight girls kiss and a guy (usually one of their boyfriends) say something inappropriate about it. Because I really liked the wrap up with Logan choosing to portray Lilly the way she really was and not some cleaned up version of her and because I really enjoyed how Veronica was able to outsmart the "smart" guys, I'm giving this one an 8/10.

Hiros: Heroes Ep 5

 This episode starts where the last one ended, with Peter Petrelli in the subway car talking to a future Hiro. One thing I noticed about this episode that I don't think I noticed before is how infantalized the Japanese men were in the present compared to how Hiro from the future is presented. Sure, you could say it is the difference between being hopeful with being battle-scarred, but none of the other characters is portrayed like this, not even Peter (who is arguably one of the most hopeful characters starting off). This is especially well observed in the interaction between Niki and Ando when he shows up to her house (super creeper move BTW). She talks to him like he's a child who doesn't understand the difference between right and wrong not some internet stalker who used her OF info to track her down. Granted, she's just had a hell of a morning and come home to find the FBI or US Marshalls in her home (I don't think who they are is ever clarified, but they're looking for her fugitive husband DL). I guess that might (emphasis on might) make her see Ando's act of creepery as somewhat innocent in comparison.

Okay, back to the subway car. Future Hiro tells Peter that he needs to find Issac so he can save the cheerleader, and by doing so save the world. Peter tries to tell all this to Mohinder once time resumes again, but Mohinder is not in a listening mood and he's all out of fucks to give. He tells Peter he sounds crazy. Peter does go back to Issac (alone) and Issac tells him that he can't even finish the painting to find out what is going to happen to the cheerleader because he's out of drugs. That's when Peter realizes that he's able to paint the future when he's around Issac. He gets the paints and gets to work. When he finishes, it's obvious that the cheerleader has become a victim of Sylar because the top of her head has been removed and she's lying in a puddle of blood. The phone rings and that's when Peter first talks to Hiro.

Before that, however, Hiro has his own journey. The thugs from the casino dump Ando and Hiro in the middle of a dessert with their suitcases. Ando blames Hiro for not stopping time to get them out of the mess, even though he's the one who was deliberately antagonizing the men and even told them that Hiro had power. Of course they were going to knock Hiro out first. Hiro sees it as karma for cheating at gambling, so he's unbothered by this turn of events. Ando and Hiro fight and Ando goes off (obviously intent on seeing Niki since he tells Hiro "that's what you think" when Hiro says he doesn't even have any friends in the US). Ando just rubs me the wrong way from the very get go. I don't think he's a good friend to Hiro and besides translating to help Hiro get by during his trip, Ando doesn't really serve a function to the story at all. (Well, Hiro also needs someone else to drive because he doesn't know how.)

After parting with Ando, Hiro witnesses Nathan Petrelli touch down outside the diner he and Ando found before Ando ran off to do his own thing. Hiro tells Nathan that he saw him and that he has been to the future. Nathan asks if he saw whether or not he won the election and Hiro remembers the newspaper headline and tells him that it was a landslide. Nathan was only flying because Claire's father tried to kidnap him. When he got a call in the midst of the attempted abduction, Nathan saw a window and ran off. He tried to climb a fence, but the two men caught up with him. Before they could grab him again, Nathan took off like a rocket into the sky. Nathan gives Hiro a ride back to Vegas where Hiro realizes he can't drive the car he's rented, and he's stuck there until Ando returns.

For her part Niki wakes up in Nathan's bed with no memory of the night before. Linderman's right hand woman tells her the debt is paid and she should go home to her son. Niki tries to argue that she left, she didn't go through with it, but the woman shows her the tape. When Niki returns home, she finds out that DL was spotted a couple blocks away and there are LE officers at her friend's house waiting to talk with her. She tells them that her husband has been following her and "doing things" although she doesn't elaborate which tells me that she still believes that she's not the one who killed those men or set up the car despite the lapses in memory one of which included her having a whole encounter with Nathan which was caught on tape. The feds see someone approaching the back door of the house so they draw their weapons and the door opens to -- Ando. Yes. That's right. A man who has only ever interacted with Niki on her OF account came to her back door and tried to come into her house without being invited and acts like he thinks all that was okay.

Niki talks to her very condescendingly, which I mentioned earlier, and tells him that the person she is online isn't real. I felt like the whole scene was very offputting. First, what he did in hunting her name down and coming to her home was stalker behavior and should have landed him in jail. For their part, the feds did offer to arrest him for trespassing, but Niki said to let him go. Second, he faces no consequences other than disappointment and eating crow which both he and Hiro must do to make up. I really hate that. Online, Ando even calls Niki a bitch for demanding that he honor the terms of their contract and pay if he wants more time. He's a grade A level creep and I don't think playing it off for laughs is a good look.

We revisit Matt's story with his wife on the phone worried sick about him. She then ends the call when she realizes he's in the house on the couch. She asks him where he's been and he says he must have drunk too much and passed out on the couch. Turns out he's been gone for a whole day. After a small argument, Matt decides to use his power to romance his wife by giving her everything her heart desires. He orders takeout from her favorite places, has her dress up and wears a suit himself, and puts on a song that has been stuck in her head all week. She then accuses him of having an affair because this is so uncharacteristic of him. He says he just wants to give her what she deserves, then she comes on to him. The two have sex and it's obviously the best it's ever been when they finish. His wife is out of breath. He reads her mind that she wants coffee flavored ice cream, so he goes out to buy it. However, he runs into a guy who plans on robbing the store. He manages to talk him down and gets him to relinquish his weapon, but the moment he touches it the whole store starts thinking that he's brandishing it with the aim of doing harm himself. He tries to tell them all that it's okay, that he's a cop, but they continue to be afraid and the cacophony of internal voices overwhelms him. He looks like he's about to pass out as the scene cuts away.

Claire tells her mother that she lost control of the car but admits to her father what happened to her on the night of the bonfire. She tells him that she crashed the car on purpose to hurt Brody who would have raped her if she had not hit her head. This results in her dad paying Brody a little visit. Brody tries to deny what he did, but the father isn't buying it. He tells Brody that he should kill him, but he's going to give him a second chance. He then instructs his partner to hollow him out and "take everything". Claire goes to visit Brody (who is still laid up) and tells him that what he did to her was wrong, but what she did to him was also wrong. Brody responds by asking who she is and why she keeps calling him Brody indicating that he truly doesn't remember anything, not even his own name.

I thought this was a good episode. Not the best one, obviously. I hated the infantilization of the Japanese characters (especially Ando who should have suffered real consequences for what he did and not been treated like a twelve-year-old who did something similar). I still think Nathan is a dickwad, but what Linderman did to him is not okay and neither is the attempted kidnapping. Anyway, 7/10 for this episode. Catch you next time. Sorry my post was a little late this week.

Veronica Mars: Episode 3 Meet John Smith

This was an interesting episode for several reasons. We'll start with the case au de jour, because it turned out to be a very interesting one. A classmate of Veronica's named Justin asks her to find his dad who he hasn't seen since he was about seven. His mother told him that his dad died, and for the first part of the show the audience is meant to think that Justin is just messing with Veronica. Justin says his dad's name was John Smith, and that he has no photos of him or anything else to go off. Veronica finds all the John Smiths within a certain radius and sends out letters claiming to be offering Justin a scholarship. Her plan is that if the dad is among those to receive the letter, he will send it back, so Justin doesn't miss out on the opportunity.

Meanwhile, the guidance counselor asks to speak with Veronica's dad, so she wants to read her file to see what the woman might be saying about her. However, it's pretty obvious from their first meeting that the counselor has a romantic interest in the dad. She tells him that she thinks Veronica needs someone to talk to and offers to be that person. Honestly, isn't that her job, though? It is such an obvious ploy. At first the dad turns down her offer, but after Veronica asks about her mom again, and her dad snaps at her for it, he decides the counselor has a point.

Anyway, this prompts Veronica to ask Wallace to get her Justin's file, which is where she learns that Justin's dad is supposedly dead. She goes to confront him about this but just as she's reaming him out for wasting her time and money, he gets a letter from John Smith. The ploy Veronica used, worked.

After checking the zip code, Veronica narrows it down to one of three people. She follows each of them and takes their pictures so she can show them to Justin. He says no to the first two because they don't have brown eyes, but the third one hasn't taken off his sunglasses, so Justin joins Veronica in staking the guy out. Justin ignores Veronica and approaches the guy who lowers his glasses just enough for Justin to realize that can't be his dad either. However, Veronica notices a handwriting match for the letter. Veronica takes Justin to the address, based on his activity Veronica thinks he's a petty criminal. She breaks into his house to see if he's driving a classic car. He catches her and tells her he's going to call the police at which point she finds out he's a bail bondsman, not a criminal as she suspected. She tells him she's here about his son, but he responds that he doesn't have a son. Just then, a car pulls up to the driveway and in it there's one of the regulars at the video store where he works, a beautiful woman with brown eyes. It turns out his dad has transitioned and is now living as a woman.

After freaking out on her and being more than a little transphobic, Justin is still upset as they drive home. Veronica tells him that his dad travelled 92 miles every week just to catch a glimpse of him and that she, Veronica, would give anything to think that her mother cared enough to do that.

Veronica finds the place where her mother was staying, but she has already left. A college friend of the mom is there instead. She says that Veronica's mom was afraid Mr. Mars would find her and that's why she left and she says that Veronica is all her mother cares about. Veronica isn't so sure. She drives home.

In the meantime of all this, there is a subplot of Veronica starting to date the new guy. They get along well throughout the date, but he goes in for a kiss at the end and she pulls back. I had initially thought this was about residual trauma from the rape, but it seems it was not wanting to move on from Duncan just yet. The next day at school she tries to correct this mistake by kissing him at the bleachers, but wouldn't you know it Duncan hurls himself off the edge and cracks open his head. It turns out he's gone off the antidepressants his parents had him on following Lilly's death. The doctor warns him he could have hallucinations, but he says it will be worth it. However, after a dream in which his dead sister stars telling him that the explanation of her death doesn't make sense, he decides to go back on them.

The episode ends for Justin with him making the decision to keep his transitioned dad in his life. He calls her to let her know the video she special ordered has come in and tells her exactly which days he works so she can be sure to catch him.

Veronica's last scene, after coming home from trying to see her mom, is her showing up outside the new guy's house. He wraps her in a hug, fade to black.

I thought this was interesting on many levels. It shows a certain disfunction in the Kane family and some callousness from the dad (which you'd expect if he was the murderer), both parents seem distant to Duncan. It deals with a family splitting up for non-conventional reasons and it has a good conclusion to the mystery.  I liked the way it handled the trans story line. I thought it was done mostly respectfully. Justin's outburst notwithstanding. It didn't portray Julia as some caricature of a trans woman, and it showed her being in a loving relationship by the way her boyfriend (or husband) hugged her as Justin and Veronica left. It ended with Justin coming to terms with her new identity (shown by his using her chosen name when calling to let her know the video was in) and deciding to keep her in his life. This is rare for a show during this time period and I applaud it. 9/10, stellar episode.