Nothing to Hide: Heroes Ep 7

This episode starts with Peter back in the penthouse taking care of the dying man he was nursing at the beginning of the show. He tells the man that he has a secret, that he can fly. Then the camera shows his POV as he flies across the city right before waking up. That's when Simone shows up, her father (the man in the dream in case I hadn't mentioned before) has just died. Matt is talking with his wife about how good things have been lately, how he feels like they've connected more and been more honest and she starts to think about him finding out something. It sounds like she's been having an affair. He goes to work out of sorts but gets called out by the woman from the FBI who's tracking Sylar. She says he's killed again and this time he left a print. They tracked it down to a Kevin Sprague. She's bringing Matt along to help her get in his head and figure out why he's killing. When they show up at Kevin's house they find evidence of intense radiation. Photos of Kevin and his family have been burned, there is damage all over the house of some kind of explosion, but Kevin is gone. As they're leaving, Matt tells the woman that he doesn't think Kevin is Sylar. He shows her a prescription for chemo medication which was prescribed by the person who was the victim of the radiation burns. The recipient of the medication seems to be Kevin's wife. When they find the woman's hospital room, they find Kevin, who tells them that the doctor's death was an accident. He told Kevin that there was nothing that could be done to save his wife and Kevin lost control. They try to take Kevin in, but he grabs a nurse and holds her hostage. That is when Matt happens to hear Kevin's wife's thoughts and gives him one last conversation with her before she dies. The two of them finally book Kevin making sure his cell has the proper accommodations to keep him from accidentally harming anyone else.

Meanwhile, back in Texas. The kid who was helping Claire tape her attempts shows up. He found the tape in his room. Claire sets the tape down with her jacket and helps her mom out to the car since she's taking the family dog (Mr. Muggles) to a dog show. The younger brother (Kyle) happens to see the tape and foolishly watches it. Claire walks in on him. She tells him it's all special effects, but he doesn't believe her. Kyle uses a staple gun to shoot her in the hand, from which she immediately heals. He then runs away from her and locks himself in the car. She and the friend try to talk him down, but the guy isn't helping. He tells the kid that Claire and him are aliens and makes an inappropriate joke about probing. Claire then breaks down telling Kyle that if their parents find out they'll freak and think it was a mistake to adopt her. This finally gets through to him and he gets out of the car and surrenders the tape.

Peter learns that Simone sold the painting to a guy named Linderman. He recognizes the name as being one of his brother's campaign donors and so he shows up to surprise Nathan and ask for his help in getting the painting back. He happens to walk in on an interview Nathan is holding with a reporter. The reporter is getting nosy about Nathan going missing in Las Vegas and mentions that there was a woman involved. That's when Peter speaks up and lies to say that Nathan was helping him meet with a private clinic and that the woman was a doctor. Afterwards, Nathan's wife asks him if that's true and he lies to her. He calls Linderman but the man won't part with the painting, so Peter is out of luck. Nathan tells Peter about the attempted kidnapping in Vegas and asks him to be careful.

This episode also revealed that Nathan's wife is wheelchair bound but hopes to walk again and that her injury was a result of a car accident where Nathan was driving. Nathan excuses the affair with Niki to Peter as wanting to be with someone who didn't make him feel guilty every time he looked at her.

Hiro and Ando run into Micah and DL as they're attempting to flee. Micah tries to talk DL into going back for his mom, but DL says it's complicated and that they can't. As they're driving the come across a car accident. A woman is still trapped in one of the cars and there is a fire. DL goes to try and pull her out of the car, but the door is locked. He phases through it to unlock and open it and pulls her out but not before the explosion begins to happen. Luckily, Hiro freezes time and is able to (with great difficulty) move the two of them out of harm's way before unfreezing it again. Micah uses the rescue to once again try to convince his father that they should go back to no avail. During their encounter, Hiro shows Micah the comic book he got from the future, which happens to be the series that Micah has been reading. He tells him about traveling there. Then Micah recognizes Ando from the creepery at his house. Apparently, he knows a lot more than he lets on about everything. Hiro announces that he's called the police, so DL and Micah take their leave and as they're driving away, they pass a police car arriving to the scene. Later that night, Micah talks to a broken telephone so he can use it to call his mother. But Niki is her other self (Jessica) now. Micah tries to convince her to let him talk to Niki, but she says Niki won't come back until he's safe with her. Micah tells her where they are, but DL walks up and finds him. Since the phone says it's out of order, Micah is able to convince his dad that he's just goofing around with the phone. Jessica loads a gun (obviously intent on actually taking DL out this time).

After things wrap up with Sprague, Matt heads back to the station where one of his police buddies tells him that the FBI woman has convinced the people in charge to let him take the detective's exam through a series of interviews. He congratulates him, but then Matt hears that same man think "Loser. I'm screwing your wife and she's so fine," so he decks him. 

Not sure at this point whether to feel sorry for Matt or to dislike him. He's obviously the kind of guy who resents it when things don't go well for him and even though he wants his wife to be happy, the reaction of ignoring her calls after learning about the affair from her and then the attack after hearing her lover's thoughts makes him seem a bit toxic, but then again, betrayal can be hard for anyone to handle. Since the two of them were in counseling at the beginning of the show, it is obvious that things aren't perfect between them. Still, he's been handed a bad deck. Dyslexia prevents him from moving up the ladder in his job despite the fact that he has the brains to do the job. His gift helps him save people but also creates a lot of problems for him. It's unclear at this point whether Matt is a good person or not. It is clear that he's not yet a bad person even if that is the direction he will eventually go, but hearing other people's thoughts is not for the faint of heart.

At this point in the show, Linderman's motives are still unclear. He lives in Las Vegas, so you wouldn't think he would have a vested interest in getting someone into congress in New York, and yet he's willing to give 4 million dollars to Nathan's campaign. I want to say that this is probably the turning point of the show. It has introduced the person who is a nuclear time bomb which obviously has something to do with the explosion in New York (although we don't know what yet) and all of the main characters have shown off their abilities (Peter's seems to be that of an empath, but the full extent of his ability may not be apparent yet). It is also not yet clear why glasses guy returned the tape after watching it.

This episode didn't have any moments that were especially rivieting, but it did serve to move the plot forward. I rate it a 7/10.

Veronica Mars Ep 5: You Think you Know Somebody

 This episode was all about the new boyfriend Troy. It starts with him, Logan and a third guy named Luke having a weekend of fun in Mexico. Luke joins Logan and Troy with a piñata which is obviously full of drugs because of how he is acting. It is unclear to the audience if Logan or Troy know what is in the piñata because Luke lies to them about why he got it, saying all the other souvenir places were closed. The border patrol jokes "want to hand over your contraband?" and it seems like the trio might be done for, but he laughs and asks them to open the trunk. Next thing you know, they are eating at a restaurant on the US side of the border laughing and joking about their stay in Mexico.

When they start to leave, they notice that the car is missing. Troy calls Veronica and Luke is visibly on edge. The next day, Luke is at the gym and the man who should be spotting him threatens to harm him if Luke doesn't bring his package. Troy tells Veronica that if his father finds out the car is missing, he'll ship him off to military school, so he enlists her help in tracking it down. The car has an anti-theft device, but to turn it on, you need to report the car stolen, and Troy says he's afraid that if he does that, his father will find out he borrowed it to go to Mexico.

Veronica tries to find out stuff about the car using a PI website and Wallace asks her if she can find out anything about him. There's nothing earth shattering, as expected. Wallace is pretty tame. The website comes into play later. Veronica's dad gets a message from his new girlfriend while she's there, so Veronica confronts him about the relationship. He tells her he just didn't want to bring it up before things got serious but that he's having fun and really likes her.

Veronica then uses the website to look up the councilor, finding a failed marriage which she hasn't gotten a divorce from yet and a very old case of check fraud. Veronica and her dad have a fight about her meddling in his personal life, but he breaks things off with his girlfriend because he realizes that this means Veronica is not ready for him to start dating yet.

Luke asks Veronica to help him get his drugs back, but they find out that the car has already been chopped and resold and that the sale is untraceable. There is no way to find the car without turning on the tracker. They do find the piñata, just as one of the kids at a birthday party cracks it open and candy (not steroids) falls out. So not only is the car missing, but so are the drugs. Veronica tells Luke that the only thing to do is to raise the money he needs to pay back the dealer. He does and Veronica delivers it. The dealer tries to tell her that he and Luke aren't square. She brings her pitbull along so he can't hurt her and keeps everything in public even though he tries to pull her into his office (smart girl). She also snaps his picture. When he tells her that he's not going to let Luke off the hook just because he got his money back, Veronica says he'll regret it. She uses the picture to print a watch out for this man poster and sends it to the border patrol. The next time he tries to make a run for steroids, he is stopped.

Veronica sends out untraceable phones to all her mom's old friends and acquaintances hoping that if she gets at least one, she'll reach out. While going through her mom's things, Veronica finds a safety deposit box key and learns that her mother was having her followed back when she was dating Duncan Kain. During a flashback where she learns about who Veronica's boyfriend is, she accidentally burns the waffles she's making and is visibly upset when she had been teasing Veronica moments before. This deepens the underlying mystery of Lilly Kain's murder. It is unclear if the friendship with Lilly began after the relationship or happened as a result of it because there doesn't seem to be any reason why she would be okay with the friendship but not the relationship (unless Veronica and Duncan are actually related like Veronica's mom had another child who was adopted by the Kains or his mother had an affair with her father or vice versa). I think if it turns out the two of them were related, that the mom should have come clean about it, though.

Back in the present, Veronica tries to sweet talk a male employee into turning on the car's tracking device, but the female boss catches them and tells him they're not supposed to do it unless the car has been reported stolen. Later, that same woman activates the device when told to do so by Veronica's father who helps as a favor to her. Afterwards, he gives Veronica an envelope of facts that he's collected about Troy and tells her it's up to her if she opens it or not.

Veronica and Troy follow the signal and find that the tracking device has been fixed to a dog's collar. Someone is a step ahead.

After learning Troy's secrets, Veronica confronts him about the fact that he used to smuggle drugs at his old school, but he still claims not to have known about Luke's deal. True to what Troy said, after his father gets back he is shipped off in a taxi. He does not get off at Albuquerque, however, he gets off at the restaurant where his father's car went missing and hands someone a roll of cash. He goes into the bathroom and takes a package out of the vent then drives off in the same car that had gone missing. Turns out he was playing them all along. He calls his old girlfriend and she tells him that some girl named Veronica who knows him has been calling her. That's when he opens the package and finds candy in place of the steroids with a note from Veronica telling him that the drugs have been flushed down the toilet.

Veronica is asleep listening to music when her phone rings. Her mother is calling from one of the burner phones she sent. She says she misses her and that once everything comes out in the open it will be clear why she is acting the way that she's acting.

I liked this one, but it wasn't the best one ever. Did not see the surprise ending coming even after Troy's past was revealed. Wasn't too sure about the dad's relationship so him calling it off didn't really affect me. Troy's betrayal stung a bit more since Veronica did turn to him in her hour of need and seemed to be starting to trust again after what happened with Duncan and at the party. I rate this one a 6/10. No emotional scenes. Plot was kind of boring, although it did have that clever twist ending.

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.

Collision: Heroes Ep 4

Wow. What an episode. Let's start with the beginning. Claire on the autopsy table. The ME gets distracted from her postmortem with a phone call which is why she is nowhere to be seen when Claire wakes up.  This is lucky for Claire, who just sneaks out clad in a doctor's jacket. The next day at school, Claire is approached by the girl who saw her leave with the jock the night before. She says "nothing" happened to her too which is when Claire decides to take matters into her own hands. My first thought at that scene on the autopsy table was that the ME must be having the strangest day ever.

After sneaking in, Claire speaks with her dad, who notices her dirty feet. He asks if she was out all night, and she claims she was just playing poker and apologizes. For some reason, this scene got to me. We know that her father is aware of her power, and he probably knows that she ended up on that autopsy table too, so when he asks her not to lie to him it especially hurts.

Claire's story this time ends with the title of this episode, a collision. Claire approaches the jock saying that her ride ditched her and flirting to convince him to give her one. She asks if she can drive. As they are driving, she tells him that she remembers what happened and he denies any wrongdoing both with her and with the other girl. She asks if he's just going to keep doing this (meaning raping girls) and he says there's nothing she can do about it, at which point she slams the car into a wall at high speed. This isn't a suicide attempt since she knows that she'll be fine. This is attempted murder. I understand Claire's actions here. By killing her would-be rapist, or at least incapacitating him, she is both getting retribution for his attempted rape and would be murder of her as well as ensuring that he never harms another.

Niki's story has her being sexually exploited by Linderman in an attempt to get blackmail fodder on Nathan Petrelli. Although we still don't see Linderman, an associate tells Niki that in order for Linderman to forgive her debt, she will need to do him a favor. When she learns what she'll need to do, she initially refuses, telling the woman that she's not a whore. Eventually, however, she agrees. She confides to the same friend as she prepares to go out for the evening, that she's been having violent dreams. She thinks that someone else is controlling her body, but her friend insists that it is a trauma response to having witnessed something unspeakable.

Before she leaves, Micah tells her that it's safer on the internet. That what she does online is not real, it's just acting. This lets Niki know that not only does Micah understand what she's about to go do, but that he's always known what she did in the garage, too. This is not a surprise since there's no way Micah wouldn't have figured it out. He's a genius and old enough to comprehend what sex is. There's no way he wouldn't have figured it out and the fact that he hasn't talked to Niki about it before was probably just out of respect for her privacy.

I am sort of pissed that they took this route for Niki (at least initially) because she is the physically strong female character so of course they exploit her body. One of Linderman's men tries to rough up Niki in the elevator as she tries to leave without fulfilling her agreement with Linderman after learning that Nathan is "happily" married with kids. She doesn't want to be a homewrecker. However, Niki's alternate persona takes over and beats the thug up instead after he threatens Micah with harm. She goes back to Nathan and the two of them sleep together. It pans up to show that there is a hidden camera installed in the room, recording everything. 

Hiro and Ando get sidetracked from their mission when Ando realizes that Hiro can use his power to cheat in the casino. He convinces Hiro (who is very childlike) that there's nothing wrong with doing it and the two of them clean up. Eventually, they get kicked out of the casino and a group of men approach them after they cheated in poker by Hiro switching their cards. Ando uses Hiro's inability to understand English as an excuse to egg them on telling them that Hiro is super powerful and that they're in trouble if they mess with him. This, of course, leads to them knocking Hiro out cold before he can stop time.

For Peter's side, after Mohinder tries to reach out to Nathan, a pissed off Nathan confronts Peter thinking that he sent Mohinder there. I found it really strange that both Nathan and Peter assumed that Mohinder was Chandra (his father) since Chandra's picture is on the back of the book and Mohinder doesn't even look like him all that much. Anyway, Peter then goes to Mohinder's apartment to talk to him about his ability. He tells Mohinder that he can't use his powers unless he's with someone else who has power. Like he can fly when Nathan is around, but not when he isn't. This leads them to try to go to Issac who is high and in a trance painting when they show up and doesn't answer the door. They are riding the subway back from their unfruitful visit and arguing about it when suddenly times stops for Peter but not for Mohinder or anyone else in the subway car. Just as Peter is starting to freak out about the fact that everyone else is frozen and he is trapped in the car, Hiro from the future shows up and tells him he has a message. That is where the show ends.

I think this episode deserves a full 10/10. The acting (especially in the emotionally powerful scenes where Claire is talking to her father and where Niki decides not to follow through with the agreement) is very good. The only thing I disliked was the fact that once again Niki finds herself exploited. By the end of the episode she's been kidnapped by the organization Claire's father seems to be a part of.

I almost forgot in all the confusion to talk about Matt. He's only shown at the very start. He's strapped to a table and Claire's dad is there. He tells Matt that he won't be able to use his power while the other man is there. It pans to the man who Matt saw at the bar right before he passed out. Still, Matt is able to glean one word (Claire's name) before Claire's father tells the other man to "clean him out". All in all, a stellar episode and pique Heroes.

Nathan Petrelli pisses me off once again.

Ando is going to want Hiro to help him cheat.

Nathan and Peter have obviously no clue how to look at the author's picture on the back of a book because both of them thought Mohinder was Chandra even though the book has a huge picture of Chandra on the back.

Hiro is very child-like.

Veronica Mars: Episode 2

 Although this episode wasn't quite as epic as the pilot, it still proved interesting. The plot moved forward in various ways. We got to know the characters a bit better. The episode centers around the leader of the motorcycle gang whose name is Eli (although he is nicknamed Weevil, I think I haven't seen it spelled but that's what it sounded like). The sheriff comes to arrest Eli's grandmother on charges of credit card fraud after the family she works for finds (whose son is the psycho character) finds out someone took a credit card offer from their trash and signed up for a credit card in their name. The sheriff doesn't think it was her, of course. He thinks it was Eli. Her lawyer brings the case to Veronica Mars who begins to investigate.

Veronica gets the school attendance records to see what class Eli would have been in during the periods when most of the online purchases were made. She finds out he was in shop which would have meant he had to leave class to make the purchases, and it was done seven times. She's sure this proves it wasn't him. She accuses the family's son after learning that the honeymoon suite bought with the card had been used by his girlfriend. However, the son demands that she prove the accusation. In order to do that, she traces the calls made on the credit card and learns that the cell phone used belongs to Eli's cousin who is also a part of his gang. It turns out that Eli has turned himself in to save his grandmother and so he is currently serving time for the crime. Veronica confronts the cousin, who says he plans on confessing after he and the girl have run away together. However, at the same time Veronica was finding out about the cousin's involvement. The psycho boyfriend was also finding out.

Veronica goes to the grandmother. She knows who gave her the brooch, which was bought with the card, so she asks why let Eli take the fall. The grandmother says because the cousin is over 18 and has priors so the crime would be a greater sentence than for his cousin who is still 17 with no priors. Veronica then exposes what the cousin was doing with the card, using it to wine and dine a spoiled rich girl, so the grandmother decides to do the right thing and turn in her other grandson.

Eli shows up just in time to save his cousin from the psycho and his gang but then tells him that he's out of the gang and lets the gang members beat him up telling a member to "make sure to stop them before they go too far" and drives off on his bike.

Once again Eli is in Veronica's debt. 

Throughout this drama, other things are happening. A new kid who seems to be a friend of Duncan Kane starts hitting on Veronica. He invites her to a party, but she declines since the gang he runs with has ostracized her (probably also a little bit because she doesn't trust any of the people that go to those parties after what happened to her). Veronica ends up being assigned to take photos for a story Duncan is writing for the school paper. The psycho has messed with her car and she has a flat tire so she ends up needing to ride there with Duncan. Duncan gets pulled over for unpaid parking tickets which turn out to belong to violations that Lily (his dead sister) committed before she died. One of the tickets was on the day she died and Veronica decides to look into it. She finds picture proof that Lily was still alive hours after her estimated time of death which gave all her family members alibis. This makes Veronica even more suspicious. 

I like that they're giving us small tidbits towards the big case in every episode (so far) because it keeps the real purpose of the show in the back of our minds. We have to solve the murder of Lily Kane.

Paris Hilton played the cheating girlfriend. Not sure if she'll show up in later episodes or if it was a one off. I guess she was a pretty big deal back when this was made, but she always seems to play the spoiled rich girl from what I've seen. I'll have to see if she shows up in more episodes to be able to decide if she can act or not.

I liked getting a bit more context about Eli, even though I really don't like him very much. It makes sense that he's not one of the rich kids since the sheriff is all too willing to prosecute him and members of his gang. All the rich kids seem immune. Even though the sheriff crashed their beach party, he didn't try to round any of them up. He just took the alcohol to use at a barbecue later in the week.

I'm not sure if Jake Kane is guilty or not. My gut says it was Duncan or the mom. I guess we'll need to wait and see. I rate this episode 7/10. It wasn't riveting, but it moved the plot along and I enjoyed most of it.

One Giant Leap: Heroes Ep 3

 Now that we're a few episodes in, I'd like to take a bit of a dive into the characters. We're starting to see some of their strengths and weaknesses now. This episode did show a tiny glimpse of Sylar as he tried to finish the job by kidnapping the girl whose parents he had killed (likely she has a power as well, since Sylar only goes after people whose powers he wants to steal). 

This episode shone a spotlight on several problematic elements of each person's story. Niki finished burying the bodies but took a ring she found on one of the old corpses to (I'm not sure her purpose in doing this) her husband D.L.'s mom. It is only in this episode we find out that she's still married because they use the mother a sort of an exposition tool of their relationship. It is clear that the mom likes her grandson and greatly dislikes her daughter-in-law. D.L.'s mom suggests she would do better raising Micah, since Niki seems ill-prepared for the task, but Niki refuses and even goes as far as to say she wants the woman out of her son's life. It seems her only reason for bringing Micah there in the first place was to try and convince a man's mother of his guilt or maybe convince herself. Niki's dual personality protects her from the guilt of what she has obviously done. This is shown in the previous episode with the blackout after trying to view the tape as well as the fact she doesn't remember the attack that resulted in two mobsters being torn apart in her garage. Another thing we learn about D.L. is that he is on the run because he is a suspect in a murder/robbery. He and a gang tried to rob the big mobster (Mr. Linderman) who Niki borrowed the money from later and then his crew ended up missing (proven dead now that Niki has found the ring belonging to one of them on a corpse) to avoid a murder charge, D.L. fled and has been on the run ever since. This explains why he is not in the picture when the story opens. It is clear from the conversation between Niki and D.L.'s mother that Niki believes D.L. is the one responsible for the death of Linderman's crony's as well even though she doesn't explicitly say this since her mother-in-law doesn't know about those men's deaths. While I do enjoy a story about a woman who is strong and capable of defending herself, I'm not sure yet if I like Niki's story. She keeps making questionable decisions and it's not evident why (with a house that doesn't appear to be a rental and a vehicle at her disposal) she is not able to have a better job than online stripper. Perhaps it has something to do with her husband's involvement with Linderman since he seems to run the town (a policeman stops her while she's driving down the road and tells her that Linderman wants a word). I think they could have done a better job to showcase this if the story line is that she is being blocked out of gainful employment because of Linderman (although you'd think he'd want her working so he could get his money back).

Hiro's journey this episode is mainly just trying to convince his friend Ando to come with him to America so they can save New York from the nuclear explosion that is set to happen in five weeks' time. He starts by showing Ando the comic book which even has their exact conversation word for word (albeit in English rather than Japanese). Ando is still creeping on Niki and when he learns they'll be driving through Vegas he grins (obviously planning to do a bit of in person stalking of the woman he was paying to take her clothes off for him). I really dislike Ando and he really only serves the purpose of letting Hiro have someone to speak with without using butchered English. I guess Hiro probably brought him along as a translator since he doesn't speak much English, although he seems to be able to read the comic book just fine.

Another character I loathe showed his true colors in this episode. I have to admit Claire's story with the attempted rape (and what would have been a murder if she hadn't been impervious to harm) at the hands of the popular boy quarterback is one I was dreading. Ever since the introduction of his character, I have been dreading this episode even though I didn't know how far into the story it was. I understand that Claire's story is the darkest one, with her father being the enemy of people with powers and having a power that will not let her die no matter what, and I understand that some stories will include elements like rape or attempted rape, but something about this one is really offputting for me, personally. Claire's story this episode ends with her on an autopsy table, the branch her attempted rapist threw her onto during his attack finally removed (after her chest has been cut open for some reason) allowed the regenerative powers to kick back in (don't ask me how her heart is still pumping to get the blood to her brain or whatever the removal of the stick actually did). I understand they used this episode to showcase that it might not be possible for Claire to die but the most likely to work is to remove her head from her body, cutting off the circulation which then stops regeneration. I still think they could have done it without the attempted rape. I really hate that part. I do remember that Claire eventually gets some vindication against her attacker later in the show (perhaps in the very next episode, I don't remember).

Matt's story starts with him being recruited to help the FBI woman who originally arrested him for suspected murder. He shoots Sylar as he's trying to mind control the FBI woman into shooting herself but Sylar seems unharmed and ends up getting away. After this, he goes home where his wife is pissed that he missed their therapy session but refuses to talk with him because she thinks it will end in a fight. She tells him she feels like he blames her for his own failure since she made partner and then thinks that she wishes he'd just leave, so he does. He goes to a bar where he playfully reads minds until he finds one man whose mind is unreadable. The man wears a necklace with the same symbol that keeps showing up in the credits, so you know he's important. One other thing that I noticed was a hint at subtle homophobia in the bar scene when Matt hears another man thinking about his "shrew" of a wife who he doesn't want to go home to and Matt raises his beer (probably in solidarity since he's also having troubles at home) the man thinks "barking up the wrong tree" and glowers at him. This is the first reference to homosexuality in the show that I could tell. I don't remember what kind of representation the show has. I think most if not all the canon couples are hetero so that's a little disappointing, but it is a show that aired on TV in the mid 2000's (if I'm remembering correctly) so that much is not surprising.

Mohinder finds Sylar's apartment where there is a ton of evidence of his misdeeds. During this discovery he is accompanied by the friendly neighbor who claimed to have known his father (I still don't think the show has named her). When he returns with reinforcements, the place has been cleaned out which casts suspicion on the neighbor since it would have taken more than one person to do such a thorough job so quickly.

In Peter's story, his relationship with his brother Nathan takes a nosedive after Nathan publicly accuses him of attempting suicide (effectively telling Peter to stop trying to develop his power and to leave Nathan out of it). Nathan is the biggest scumbag in these first few episodes. I do believe his character undergoes a bit of growth before the show ends, but it is still really difficult to watch how dismissive and abusive he is towards Peter despite his younger brother worshipping him. One thing I will say about the actor who portrays Peter is that he has a way with expressive acting. He later played in another of my favorite shows "This is Us". If I can find a place to watch, I'll definitely start blogging about that one by the episode as well. 

Issac and his girlfriend break up over his heroin addiction. Hiro keeps trying to warn Issac that he is in danger (I'm not sure why he doesn't try getting Ando to call him since Ando can speak English) but Issac thinks he's being pranked since Hiro is just talking in Japanese very quickly.

Those are my thoughts on Episode 3. I rate this episode 7/10. I liked most of it and thought it was a solid episode but took off a few extra points because of the one scene I absolutely detest.

Good Omens: final season

 I finally got around to watching the final episode of Good Omens. After everything that happened concerning one of the co-authors of the original, I wasn't sure if we were going to get one and if it would be any good if we did. The episode started off a bit rocky. A lot of the humor during the first half of the show was hit and miss. I didn't really jive with the whole second coming arc, although some of the Jesus of Nazereth dropped into the modern world bits were amusing. When it really started picking up was when our dynamic duo reconnected and started playing off each other. 

I liked that Crowley would rather give up his precious car than see anything happen to Aziraphel's bookshop even though Aziraphel himself abandoned it. I think it really started picking up after Aziraphel beat the would be gangster in a game of competitive crossword solving, though.

I didn't really find the hell bits funny, not like the previous seasons. They were a bit lackluster. The heaven bits too. I did enjoy that everyone seemed to come to the same conclusion about who the culprit was independent of each other. But what I liked most about the whole thing was the ending. I'm not going to spoil it for anyone who might want to watch, but I felt that it wrapped up our dynamic duo's romance in the perfect way. I couldn't have asked for a better or more complete ending and I was genuinely smiling from ear to ear for the last 15 minutes of the show. I loved that part of it.

I do think that part of what seemed off about the show might have been the necessary condensation that had to happen to get the story wrapped up within one episode instead of six. I liked the mystery element while it lasted, though. A lot of the best humor from the show probably came from Terry Prachett's writing since I think season 1 is the funniest of all and that is the only one adapted from the joint-written novel. There wasn't as much of a human element to the first half of the show either, probably because they didn't have time for side plots. 

However, since the main reason I wanted to watch was to get a satisfying ending for our dear boys, I will rate this final season a solid 7/10. The ending itself is a 10/10 but to understand it you kind of have to watch the whole show. If you don't want to watch because of all the controversy, that's perfectly understandable. I wasn't sure I wanted to watch either. However, knowing that Neil Gaiman had taken a step back from this season so that the show could get its ending without it being sullied by what he'd done did help to convince me it was worth checking it out.

(p.s. I'm watching most of my shows on Netflix, although this one was Amazon Prime, so if Netflix wants to sponsor me...)

Veronica Mars: Pilot Episode

 Very intriguing first episode with some very dark themes. It starts out with the titular character explaining how she lives in a place where everyone who goes to her high school is either a millionaire or works for millionaires. Then the story shows a young man taped to the flagpole in his underwear with the word 
"snitch" written across his chest. Veronica cuts him down, so he joins her for lunch. Veronica tells how she used to be part of the "it" crowd because she dated the son of the rich software executive named Jake Kane who was responsible for a lot of people in his company becoming millionaires who is also beloved by the whole town. Slowly Veronica spins the story of how she fell from grace through small flashbacks and offhand comments.

It turns out the boy taped to the flagpole happened to piss off the motorcycle gang by using the emergency button when two of his gang tried to shoplift alcohol from the store where he worked. The sheriff showed up and he tried to tell them he pressed the button by accident, but they didn't believe him and took the security cam footage so they could prosecute the guys. I'm not sure if the show has given his name yet but the boy taped to the flagpole showed up on a google search as Wallace Fennel so that's how I will refer to him until the show clarifies it. Veronica decides to help Wallace by clearing the motorcycle gang. See Veronica works at a private investigating firm established by her father who used to be the sheriff until he ended up accusing Jake Kane of the murder of his daughter and Veronica's best friend. Now they've been ostracized by most of the wealthy people, even though there are still some people on his side who are willing to help Veronica on the DL.

As the back story continues, we learn that Veronica was ruffied at a party and raped by an unknown assailant and when she tried to report it the sheriff mocked her and humiliated her instead of helping. This is what I'm talking about with dark themes. I like that the show just infers what happened to her without any graphic depictions of it (although showing a graphic scene when the victim doesn't remember what happened would be difficult anyway). 

In the present, Veronica's dad gets a case involving the Kane family again when Jake's wife comes to him for help in proving her husband has been unfaithful. Mr. Mars has to leave town to track down a bail skipper so the pair can pay their bills for another month and tells Veronica that if she follows up on the case that she needs to bring back up (which she does by bringing along her pit bull). While she's on the stake out, the motorcycle gang shows up and tries to intimidate her, but she sics her dog on one and tasers another until the leader calls his boys off. He tells Veronica she has one week to clear the members of his gang's name and Veronica decides to help. She frames the boy who she calls the school's obligatory psychopath during the school's random locker search by planting a bong in his locker. She sets off a smoke bomb in the evidence room after the police bring the bong in by using a remote control, then one of the firemen called to defuse the situation switches the tape for her. 

Veronica attends the hearing for the motorcycle gang members where they try to submit the evidence tape and find that the tape shows one of a policeman hiring a prostitute instead. The judge dismisses the case. Veronica winks to the sheriff who glares back at her before walking proudly out the door. Later, at the beach, she gives the tape to Wallace who is flying a remote-control plane. As a thank you, he starts teaching her how to fly it.

The psycho boy shows up, angry about the bong incident and starts trashing her car, but the motorcycle gang shows up to defend her and he backs off.

Veronica uses her skills to pretend to be Inga (I think she's either a receptionist or a court clerk) looking up a hit and run license plate in order to find out why her father decided to drop the Kane case as soon as he saw it. She finds out its her mother's car. She hasn't seen her mother in 8 months. Now Veronica wants to know why her mother is meeting up with Jake Kane at sleazy hotels and if this has anything to do with the Kane case which she learns her father is still investigating even after someone else (a former employee of Kane's software firm) has been accused and indicted for. 

I found this pilot episode to be extremely riveting and I will definitely be checking out more of this show. I liked that the main character is a smart, capable girl who uses her wits to solve problems and that the people who know her acknowledge this (for the most part). A funny scene near the start shows Veronica's locker being picked for the random search and Veronica opening it to show it empty with a picture of the vice principal pinned to the door. She says "this is embarrassing" while it is clear that she knew ahead of time and was two steps ahead. This small scene cements her as one of my favorite female main characters of all time. I can see why this show was popular back in the day. 9/10 first episode. (took a point for the casual racism by the latino gang leader against the black Wallace).

Don't look back: Heroes Ep 2

 I had forgotten that we don't get to actually meet Sylar in Ep 2, so I'm not sure when we see his face for the first time. I do remember Zachary Quinto's bone chilling portrayal of him so I'm really looking forward to the first time we see him. In this episode, we got a new hero: Matt, a down on his luck cop who can't seem to pass the detective exam but happens to realize he can read minds when he hears a little girl who was presumed missing where she is hiding in a secret passageway under the staircase in the house where her parents were murdered. The lead detective investigating the Sylar murders arrests Matt on suspicion that he murdered the parents to set himself up as the hero since Matt can't really explain how he heard the little girl when the house was full of policemen and detectives. We see two of Sylar's victims in this episode and we know he was in touch with Mohinder's father because Mohinder discovers an answering machine message where Sylar calls him and Mr. Suresh argues with him about what he's done. Here we learn that if he'd never met the old man, Sylar would not have begun his murder spree. We also get to see a few of Sylar's powers' residual effects because the father of the girl (obviously the target since his head was cut open and his brain removed) is frozen solid and the mother seems to have been levitated before being impaled with several sharp objects.

Niki (sorry I misspelled it earlier; in this episode, it shows her name on a car registration so now I realize how it should be spelled) keeps missing time. She tries watching the tape and before she knows it 4 hours have passed and she's in different clothes. When she goes back to try to clean up the mess, she finds that the bodies are gone and the blood splatter in the garage has been removed. There are keys to a red convertible which is registered in her name and instructions to follow the map in the trunk. The map is on top of the two bodies which have been dismembered. She drives out into the desert until she reaches the spot where there's a shovel waiting for her. When she starts digging, she finds a skull (proof that someone has used this same location to bury bodies once before). We also get a bit more info on Micah's dad. It seems the cops are after him. Niki's friend suggests that it was him who killed the mobsters, but Niki doesn't think so.

Hiro finds a comic book written by Issac Mendez (yes that Issac) which chronicles the discovery of his powers. He uses the address on the comic to find Issac's studio where he also find's Issac dead with the top of his head sawed off. Before he can even react to the discovery, cops burst in and place him under arrest. As the police question Hiro, he insists that he teleported from Japan the day before. They call his friend who answers that he hasn't seen Hiro in five weeks. Hiro thinks it's Oct 2, but the cop shows the paper (with a picture of Nathan Petrelli's landslide victory) and the date of Nov 8. As it dawns on Hiro that he has time-traveled, the explosion that Issac predicted hits and right before the shockwave gets there, Hiro manages to return to his own time back on the same subway he teleported from in the first place.

For Claire, her father tries to make excuses about letting her meet her birth parents saying it's an adult decision. Then Claire goes to school and learns that the firefighters are looking for the girl who saved the man from the train wreckage. Another cheerleader takes credit for the deed and gets honored for it. The teen who recorded the tape tells Claire that it's missing, and she tells him he needs to find it right before accidentally becoming a tackling dummy and getting her neck snapped. Claire is fine, of course, so she plays it off as though the tackle did nothing to her. I found this a little unbelievable. If the force of a tackle was enough to snap a neck, there would be such injuries all the time in football. I don't buy that the size difference was great enough that a tackle would do that much damage and felt it was an unnecessary show intended to further illuminate her healing powers. 

Peter Petrelli learns that his father suffered from depression and committed suicide after Nathan tries to gaslight him that he jumped to kill himself not because he thought he could fly. Peter, at the end of his rope goads Nathan by threatening to jump again unless Nathan admits he flew. Nathan finally admits it, but tells Peter that he flew as well which Peter doesn't believe at first until he walks on the air without thinking about it only falling once he realizes what he's doing. A character I forgot to mention in the last post was Mrs. Petrelli. Mrs. Petrelli is an interesting character, because she seems a bit eccentric at first (we meet her after she has shoplifted some socks she didn't need in order to "feel alive") but right away we can see there's something off about her dynamic with Peter. So when she tells Peter that she hid Mr. Petrelli's actual cause of death to protect him in this episode the viewer is left wondering if she was really trying to protect him or trying to control him.

Mohinder meets a young woman from his father's building who was keeping him company and who says she was unaware of his death. This woman's name does not come up in the episode. After Mohinder introduces himself, she rightly guesses that he is the older man's son (probably due to his pet lizard also being named Mohinder).

I felt this episode helped us get to know the characters a bit more and learn more about their powers. Although I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to meet Sylar yet because he's such an amazing villain, I still thought this was a solid episode. I give it an 8/10.

Genesis: Heroes Ep 1

 I will admit this is not my first watch-through of the TV show Heroes, I have seen the whole thing before and remember most of the salient plot points. The story begins with our narrator and resident geneticist Mohinder Suresh talking about the evolution of mankind. What struck me about the voiceover this time around was the comment he made about God being a cockroach (if a creator were to make a being that in their own image because the cockroach is more evolutionarily advanced since it can survive in conditions that are unsurvivable to many other species) because later on, when Mohinder decides to move to New York and take over his father's research, his first day in the father's building has him crush a cockroach on sight. I just thought that was a funny little detail. The show follows a group of people with varying powers. Peter Petrelli feels like his career of hospice nurse is not his true calling and he keeps having dreams about flying. He tells his big brother Nathan (a douchbag politician) about the dreams and the feeling that he was destined for something greater, and Nathan gaslights him and talks down to him about it. By the end of the episode, we find out that whether Peter can fly or not, Nathan can and he obviously already knew it before Peter came to him since he uses the power to save Peter after he jumps off a building. (I already know how this is going to play out, but I'm trying to come at this from the perspective of a first watch through). Claire is a cheerleader who seems impervious to harm. She has been making attempts on her own life to test her limits and having a friend record them on his handheld camcorder. By the end of the episode, we also find out that Claire is adopted and that her adopted father is probably one of the people responsible for what happened to Mohinder's father, since he was the one trying to hide evidence of the elder Suresh's research. Nicki is a single mom (there are references to Micah's father but he's definitely not in the picture) who is trying to use online sex work to make money after borrowing a stupidly large amount from a mob boss to get her genius son into private school. She keeps seeing someone else in the mirror. She tells a friend that she thinks she's being watched before going home to find two mobsters in her house. They take her to the space where she was doing her sex work to exploit her a little since they think they hold all the cards, but when she stands up to them, she blacks out and wakes up in a space with their dead, brutalized, bodies and covered in their blood. Her reflection puts a finger to her lips as Nicki looks at the carnage in horror. Hiro Nakamura is a Japanese office worker who is a comic book nerd. He begins by slowing and then making time go back a second. His best friend (who it turns out is one of the pervs paying Nicki for her services) doesn't believe him and calls him crazy. Hiro ends the episode by teleporting to New York from the subway in Japan. Finally, Issac is a drug addicted painter who paints the future whenever he's high. He is responsible for Peter ending up jumping off that building in the first place, since he painted a picture of Peter flying. By the end of the episode, he's painted a nuclear explosion hitting New York and he's mumbling how he has to stop it.

The show uses a solar eclipse as a way to connect all the characters even though they are sort of connected through other means as well. Issac is dating the daughter of the man Peter is a hospice nurse for. She drags Peter to her boyfriend's studio to administer some morphine which she is hoping will keep him from going through withdrawals since he is trying to quit cold turkey and behaving erratically, but Issac has already overdosed by the time they arrive. Claire is the adopted daughter of the man seeking to bury the late Suresh's research. Hiro travels to New York (where Peter and Issac live). Even in just the first episode all the characters besides Nicki have some superficial connection to each other. What I disliked about the eclipse scene was how many of the people just looked at it with their naked eyes. Sure, it showed them squinting, but I was ready to shout at the screen. Nicki watches it through a device her son made (which allows you to view it without looking directly at it) so only her viewing was safe.

As far as first episodes go, it was pretty intriguing. I admit the part where they try to explain the powers scientifically always loses me a little. Like how are you going to explain through genetics the power of flight? I think I like the original Superman explanation better (originally Superman couldn't fly he just had the power to jump very high). I know there's a certain amount of suspension of disbelief in all these shows, but sometimes I wish they didn't try to make up "scientific" explanations for it. Overall, I rate the episode a 7/10. It kept my interest and was a good introduction to all the characters, but I thought some of the lines were a bit cheesy and hated the exploitation of Nicky (the gangsters could have just tried to rough her up without trying to make her strip for them and the end result would have been the same).

*edit: I said Nicki wasn't connected to the other heroes yet, but I forgot that Hiro's pervy friend was one of her only fans customers. 

Heartfelt Apologies

 I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for going MIA from this site. I've had a lot going on in my life recently and this has taken the back burner for a while. I fully intend to review more movies, TV shows, and books in the near future. I just need to get some semblance of normalcy in my life again to do it. I noticed that my blog has gotten some attention despite the fact that I haven't written anything on it in a while, so that's good. Maybe Adsense will see fit to restore my account and let me earn money off this thing (paltry as it might be). If not, these reviews might help to showcase my writing style to potential clients who wish to hire me, so I'd still like to continue. 

Adsense aside, if you know any sponsors who might wish to fund this endeavor, feel free to have them reach out to me. I can see all the comments on this blog even though I moderate them before posting (those of you who were following me from way back know why) so that is the best way to reach me about a possible sponsorship. I might start an accompanying tiktok account (still not sure what I would post there, because I'm a bit camera shy) or another type of social media account to help promote this. I would love for this blog to be a stepping-stone to reaching my ultimate goal of having a writing career, but so far, it's just a way for me to exercise my skills.

Also wanted to say I fully intend to review the most recent addition to the Interview with a Vampire series aka The Vampire Lestat because I have some thoughts after finishing it, but I need time to go over everything in my head, and I might need to rewatch it as well.

Stay tuned for more and thank you for reading. 

Review of the Thai BL Top Form

Let me start by acknowledging that the manga (at to a lesser extent) the anime based on that manga which was the source material for this BL was extremely problematic. Despite this, I found myself growing attached to the relationship between the two male leads and this show was essentially my introduction to the great world of BL. When I began watching the show I did not even know it was going to be BL, as the Japanese refer to everyone by their last name and I don’t believe there were any pronouns in the anime description on Crunchyroll. Fast-forward about six years and I’ve become practically a BL fanatic. I discovered that I really enjoy queer media in general and have consumed a lot of other gay and lesbian stories as well, but BL unlocked something inside me that I didn’t really understand at the time.

What I really loved about the Thai BL Top Form is that this adaptation removed the most problematic elements of the story (the only reason I considered this one to be a guilty pleasure) and kept everything sweet and wholesome about it. It even told the story in the order I wish it had been told originally, by starting with their first meeting instead of showing that as a flashback later. One thing I’ve always hated about Yaoi manga and (sometimes anime) is the non-con elements that often permeate the media. This is in no way a condemnation of those who enjoy stories that include this (as it can be a safe way for people with such fantasies to explore them without getting hurt) but I’ve never been a fan. Color me shocked when I found myself thoroughly enjoying the anime Daikaichi in which the top essentially blackmails the bottom into sleeping with him the first time (it’s worse in the manga since he rapes him). Over the course of the show, the two become the cutest couple, but that part always bothered me. Another issue that I had with the show was with the character of Ayagi (who tries to rape Takato after he gets drunk but changes his mind only because Takato drunkenly calls for Chunta which is his nickname for Junta) and how Junta handled the situation after Takato tells him he doesn’t remember what the two of them did because he was drunk.

When I say Top Form fixed all this, it is the understatement of the year. First, let’s examine why telling it in chronological order instead of beginning with their first night together works much better for a healthy story. In the anime and manga, the first time we meet Takato he has just been surpassed by Junta as the sexiest man alive and also begun a new working relationship with his old rival. Starting it here gets us to the sex faster, but the story-telling suffers because without seeing the depth of connection they shared after working on that first project together and the way it impacted Junta in particular, it’s impossible to see their relationship as being anything more than a fanboy living out his fantasy by finally sleeping with his idol. Once I saw the episode with their backstory I wondered why the story had not started there and thought it would have been much better if it had. I was right. Top Form starts with the original drama (the nature of the drama is changed for the Thai adaptation, but the heart of it remains the same) where Jin (Junta) and Akin (Takato) meet for the first time. It is also told beginning with Jin’s perspective which I appreciated since Akin is a bit of a Tsundere type which makes it harder to gauge his feelings right away.

Second, Top Form eliminated all the non-con from the main couple leaving only the attempted rape after Akin gets drunk and Johnny (Ayagi) leaves a hickey on his neck but stops short of rape after Akin drunkenly calls for “Jun” which is his nickname for Jin. This helped me to more fully support the pairing (since the main issue I had with the original was the non-con and dub-con element) and made the story all the better for it. I still felt the rage over the scene with Johnny. In the original anime adaptation, I actually shouted at my screen during the ensuing scene with Junta where he blames Takato for the molestation because he got drunk and can’t remember what happened. In Top Form, they keep the essence of devastation that Jin feels without the blame by having Akin try to hide what happened and refuse to tell Jin that he can’t remember because he was too drunk. This makes it seem to Jin as if Akin has cheated on him so his ensuing anger can be seen as justified rather than inappropriate.

In Top Form, the only one to blame for the incident is Johnny (who I will never forgive for the sexual assault, he can get bent). Another change to the story is the addition of the stalker which makes it a bit more modern since there are fewer paparazzi types than there are fans with phones taking pictures inappropriately. In the original story, it was a fame seeking paparazzi who took the photos in the first place, but in this story, he just capitalized on what the stalker had already done.

If I have one complaint about the series it might be that I did not feel like the roles were evenly cast. I got a lot out of Akin’s character with Boom’s (Thai actors all have nicknames that they use in place of their actual first name for promotion purposes) portrayal whereas I felt Smart did not give a similarly captivating performance as Jin. I still like it, I just feel like it could have been better.

In the original Takato’s nickname for Junta is “horny angel” because he appears sweet and loving on the surface but he’s always dragging Takato off to the bedroom. The angel wing effect that accompanied Takato’s exclamations of “horny angel” were kept for this adaptation even though Akin’s nickname for Jin is “wooden boy” (a reference to his less than stellar acting when they first met not his constant horniness). I liked the inclusion of the effect since this version of the character does not always act on his desires but mostly lets Akin lead the sexual relationship.

All in all, I would give this adaption a 9/10 since I liked more of the changes than I disliked and Akin was portrayed brilliantly even if Jin’s character was a bit flat in comparison. It might just be that Smart is younger and less experienced than Boom (which is also true of their characters).