Heroes: Episode 3.02

One of Us, One of Them

Brief Recap and then some thoughts:

Tracy tracks Nikki Sanders down to a New Orleans address and heads down there to find out who she is and why she looks so much like her.  She meets Micah and they have a sweet scene together.  Using his computer, he helps her learn that she and Nikki were born on the same day, in the same hospital in Los Angles.  Tracy tracks down the doctor (Dr. Zimmerman) on their birth certificates.  He tells her that he "created" them.

Claire really wants to go and kill some bad guys - especially Sylar - and asks her biological mother Meredith to teach her how to fight.  Meredith takes her to a shipping container and shuts them both inside.  She then proceeds to turn up the heat and suck all of the oxigen out of the container, suffocating Claire until she admits that she doesn't want to kill Sylar in order to help people - she wants revenge.  Later, Claire pretends to go on an overnight cheerleading retreat when in fact she hits the road in pursuit of Sylar.

Hiro and Ando's pursuit of Daphne brings them to a movie house (in Berlin?) that's having a Buster Keaton festival (a bit heavy-handed).  Daphne tells them that she's already handed over the half of the formula that she stole from them to her boss, and she was at the theater because there was going to be a handover of the other half and she was going to steal it.  Turns out, it's The Haitian who is there to retrieve the half (from some brunette) for Mrs. P.  Hiro and Ando almost get the paper from The Haitian, but then they bungle things and Daphne makes off with it.  The Haitian takes both Hiro and Ando back to Level 5, where they are locked up.

Angela Petrelli is just as creepy-touchy-feely with Sylar as she is with her other sons.  She tells Sylar she regrets giving him up for adoption.  She offers him a job as HRG's partner and he accepts.  The escaped Villains have robbed a bank and taken hostages.  The plan is to lure HRG to them so they can exact revenge on him for capturing them and locking them up on Level 5.  HRG and Sylar arrive on the scene and pretend to be FBI.  HRG trades himself for the hostages, telling Sylar he is to stay away from the bank ( and the "buffet" of powers the Villains present to Sylar) and debrief the hostages.  Inside the bank, things deteriorate quickly: Peter uses Jesse's power of sound wave manipulation to take out a couple of bad guys (does Peter have that power now?); then FuturePeter shows up, stops time, pushes Peter out of Jesse's body and teleports away with him.  When time resumes to normal, Sylar comes into the bank, saves HRG, and kills Jesse and takes his power.  In the end, the German and Jesse are dead (Weevil is gone already!), the blue-fire guy is back in Level 5 and Knox, the black guy whose power is super-strength that feeds off of people's fear, is on the loose.  Back at Level 5, HRG and The Haitian are reunited and HRG tells him that he plans on killing Sylar.

Some thoughts that I'll break down by pairs:

Tracy/Micah - I like this version of Nikki SO much better. Look at how big Micah's gotten! Did anyone else think when Tracy heard that Micah can speak to and control machines that she was thinking about how he could tamper with voting machines?  Just me?  The coffin/wake for Nikki in the house is completely out of the timeline, isn't it? Nikki died in the season finale and they haven't even buried her yet? Are they saying that everything that's happened in the first three episodes of this season has taken place in a couple of days? Maybe, I guess. If so, then Nathan has made an amazing recovery and he has also managed to move to DC and get sworn in as a Senator in just a couple of days. Anyway, I digress...Remind me of how Nikki died. Didn't she die when the building she was in blew up? Her dead body looked awfully good for someone who died in an explosion/fire.

Claire/Meredith - I think making Claire's character darker makes a lot of sense, but I'm not sure I'm on board with the mother thing. Why in world would she ask Meredith to teach her to fight? Has she ever seen her fight? I suppose Claire was looking for guidance from a Hero and Meredith was the closest at hand? They need to tone down Claire's makeup and get rid of the borderline mom jeans and heels, please. She can be badass without looking like she just stepped out of an 80s hair band video.

Hiro/Ando - You know I love these guys, but Hiro is starting to annoy me. How old is he? 12? If he keeps up like this, by the time we reach the future I'm going to be routing for Ando to zap him to death. (Alright, I exaggerate). I was delighted, however, to see The Haitian again! He makes things so much more interesting for me. I'm happy to see he's still around and with The Company.

Parkman/African Guy - The paintings were interesting, even if we've seen this all before. The white-haired girl must be Daphne, right? So in the "original" future, Parkman and Daphne were supposed to get together and have a baby, but now that FuturePeter effed everything up, something terrible will happen to her? I had trouble making out some of the other paintings. Could you tell what they were? I'm assuming the goop that Parkman ate that gave him the painting power is chemically similar to the formula that Mohinder injected himself with, and possibly related to The Formula that Hiro and Ando are chasing around.

HRG/Sylar - I'm not so sure about this as a premise.  Why would Sylar agree to partnering up with HRG?  Why is he suddenly so docile?  Why didn't he just use his super powers to toss aside all of the cops, go into the bank, and "feed" on the villains?  What am I not getting?  Please tell me he has some nefarious plan up his sleeve.  And I'm really confused about what powers he actually has now, since had that virus.  He still has his original power (figuring out how things work), he has telekenesis, he has Claire's invincibility, and...can he teleport now, too?  Oh, wait - I forgot that Mrs. P "fed" him that woman whose power was to know the history of objects.  That must come into play later on, especially considering Mrs. P's knowledge of the future.

All in all, I thought this was a good episode, and better than the season premiere.  And I think it's no coincidence that there was very little Peter and absolutely no Mohinder and Maya in it.

What did you think?

Bailout Plan defeated in Congress.

Bailout plan rejected:

"What was supposed to be a 15-minute vote stretched past the half-hour mark as leadership scrambled for support. Investors who had been counting on the rescue plan sent the Dow Jones industrial average down as much as 700 points while watching the measure come up short of the necessary support, before rebounding slightly. The key stock reading was down more than 500 points."

Sigh. I am so cornfused about all of this. I honestly don't know whether this bailout plan is a good idea or not, and I don't know who to believe anymore. And the stock market is so volatile right now, I wouldn't have been surprised if the bill passed and the Dow still dropped hundreds of points.

One thing I do know: I don't want those greedy bastards to get their golden parachutes anymore. If their company is going down in flames, they ought to burn, too.

Anyone else see a resemblance?

On the left, Angela Petrelli, matriarch of the powerful - politically and otherwise - Petrelli family in NBC's Heroes, mother of Nathan and Peter (and possibly Sylar) and all-around badass; on the right, well, you know.

As vaguely evil as she is, I would rather have Angela Petrelli running for VP than Sarah Palin.  Wouldn't that be awesome?  She'd have Washington straightened out before the first State of the Union address!

If the Empire Invaded San Francisco.

Awe. Some.

TV Talk: Poll

Alright, so you've had a chance to see a few of the new shows - what do you think?

poll by twiigs.com

Psychic Power Station?

OK, when the video reaches about :45, check out the background behind John Taylor.



Whoa! Smoke-trailing airplanes flying around the World Trade Center? Weird! I saw this on VH1 Classic this morning and I couldn't believe it. Not only is it eerily prescient - I can't figure out what it has to do with the song!

I also noticed that John Taylor is SO wasted in this video. I think that wall is holding him up.

Sad News.

Paul Newman has died from lung cancer. He was 83.

Here's a nice video tribute to a "life well-lived":



I was thinking that a donation to Mr. Newman's Hole In The Wall Gang might be a nice way to honor his memory.

The Daily Show's Week in Review

It's got to be a great time to be a writer for The Daily Show. This stuff writes itself.

Rome is burning and I'm posting celebrity gossip and fart jokes.

And that's intentional. I need a break from the bickering, finger-pointing politicians (on both sides) involved in the current financial crisis. I can't say I completely understand what happened or what is happening, but I know it's bad and it makes me sick to see the chaos surrounding the "bailout" talks. And where is our Fearless Leader? Our country desperately needs leadership right now and, well, we're not getting it. I watch the news and I'm ashamed by the entire mess. I'm just plain disgusted. And so I don't want to talk about it here.

Besides, there are plenty of places where you can get the news; but where else can you get pugs, baby pictures, lots of nerdy television talk, vague movie reviews and the occasional pretty photo? Only here, I say!

While we're sort of on the subject, I see that John McCain has changed his mind and will participate in the debate tonight. Wise decision, my friend.

Now I just have to decide if I'm up to watching it.

"I FAHT in your general direction!!

Man charged after allegedly passing gas toward cop:

As Patrolman T.E. Parsons prepared the machine, Cruz scooted his chair toward Parsons, lifted his leg and "passed gas loudly," the complaint said.

Cruz, according to complaint, then fanned the gas toward the officer.

"The gas was very odorous and created contact of an insulting or provoking nature with Patrolman Parsons," the complaint alleged.

The Clayboards are all stirred up.

Defamer has put up a link to a poster at the Clayboards who is just destroyed by the SHOCKING news that Clay is Gay. Here's a snippet:

I will never be able to listen to him sing, "O Holy Night," knowing he desires unholy nights.

And watching him "come out" while hiding himself behind that poor little baby was utterly disgusting.

For all his talk about his personal life being off limits, he the one who has put it out there front and center, and has become just another advocate for legitimizing this abomination.

Every day families across this country are bombarded with this so-called alternative lifestyle being shoved down our throats... on television, in music, and in print. But it will forever be abnormal, perverse, and a subject of ridicule. And all the charity work in the world won't change that fact.

Today, if you say homosexual behavior is wrong, some people will label you homophobic, or say that you are judgmental. So be it, I know Who has the last word on this, and that word won't change with the times.

I am speechless.  I know that people think this way, but...she LOVED him yesterday.  Now that he is gay, she doesn't?

If you read the thread from the beginning you'll find more posts like this one (and they're highly entertaining) but overall, people are happy for him.  And that's good.

About that People magazine cover...I was not surprised at the news that he is gay but I was SHOCKED to discover that he's actually a lesbian!

Witchy Poo Series

Witchy Poo, originally uploaded by gina64.

Sailboat at the Fayerweather Yacht Club

Sailboat, originally uploaded by gina64.

You have chosen your parking space wisely.

You have chosen your parking space wisely., originally uploaded by gina64.

From last year's CT Ren Faire.

Big Surprise.

Clay Aiken is gay: "The 29-year-old former "American Idol" runner-up, multiplatinum recording artist and Broadway star credits his son, conceived by in-vitro fertilization with friend and producer Jaymes Foster, with making him realize that he could no longer hide his homosexuality from the world."

I joke, but for his sake, I am glad the he finally came out.

Way to go, Barbara Stanwyck.

Robert Wagner reveals love affair with Stanwyck: "I would say she gave me self-esteem," writes the actor whose successful TV series included "It Takes a Thief" and "Hart to Hart," but the relationship didn't hold. They were both too busy working and the age difference was too great. Stanwyck eventually broke it off.

Heroes: Episodes 3.01 and 3.02

Well, I'll start off by saying that the one-hour recap thing that was on at 8:00 absolutely blew. Or at least the first ten minutes did. That's all I could watch. I thought it was going to be a "what's happened so far/where we left off" show, when in fact it was just a gigantic, hype-filled commercial for the season premiere. And that was only so-so.

They aired two episodes back-to-back last night: The Second Coming and The Butterfly Effect.  And they jammed a lot of stuff into them and frankly, not all of it made sense.

This is what I think happened.

Things start in the future (another apocalyptic future?  really?), where things aren't going so well for our heroes.  It's 4 years after Nathan told the world about their powers in that press conference in the season finale where he got shot and never got the chance to tell the world about their powers. The heroes are being persecuted, tested and hunted down, Claire is a brunette and bad and wants to shoot Peter.  So FuturePeter travels back in time to the press conference and shoots Nathan to prevent him from telling the world about their powers.  OK, so the mystery of who shot Nathan is solved.  But tell me this: why couldn't Peter travel back a few minutes earlier and just tell Nathan that he ruins the future by revealing their secret?  He has to kill him?  Sometimes I think Peter is actually slightly impaired, if you know what I mean.

FuturePeter spends the entire two episodes pretty much f*cking everything up by meddling with the timeline.  He hides PresentPeter in The Company's Level 5 containment area (where HRG is being held) by "putting him into" a prisoner who is already there (I'm assuming this is a power that FuturePeter acquires in the future) - some guy named Jesse whose power is sound manipulation - and spends the rest of the time screwing things up.  He tells Claire to stay home when she wants to come and see Nathan in the hospital and because of that, Sylar is able to find her (how did he find her?) and take her power, making him pretty much indestructible.  I really liked the scene where he was poking around in her brain, especially when he tells her she's disgusting for suggesting that he eats people's brains.

FuturePeter's presence also messed up Matt's timeline.  Matt's suspicious of FPeter when he finds him trying to hide the gun he used to shoot Nathan, so FPeter blinks him to Africa, where he spends both episodes wandering around and hilariously reading turtles' minds.  But then a cute magical African guy (a possible Hero) finds him, gives him water and tells him to follow him.

Nathan doesn't die.  Well, he does, officially, but then he miraculously recovers.  Just sits up on his gurney and takes a big breath.  He's convinced it was God who saved him and he gets sort of preachy and I don't really like Nathan like that.  The press picks up the story, and the Governor of NY notices.  He needs to appoint a replacement U.S. Senator (the one they had died, I guess) and the Gov.'s aide suggests Nathan.  The Gov.'s aide, by the way, is Nikki!  Who died in the season finale!  But wait, it's not Nikki, it's someone named Tracy Strauss who is identical to Nikki but who is a much better character.  She's an ice queen, both literally and figuratively - her power is freezing people with her touch.  Shout out to her first victim: William Katt, the Greatest American Hero!

So anyway, while in the hospital, Nathan has been seeing dead people.  Well just one: Linderman, who advises Nathan to take the job.  He does.

Meanwhile, Mohinder and Maya.  Sigh.  These two are so STUPID.  I can barely watch them.  I really cannot believe they have kept Maya around, I really can't.  I didn't follow any of the supposed "science" that Mohinder was spouting, I have no idea what the hell he's supposed to be doing, all I know is he is the dumbest scientist in the world.  He suddenly realizes that the powers are connected to the "flight or fight" response and the adrenal gland and with that discovery he concocts some sort of serum that he injects into himself.  He was supposed to be finding a way to cure people of these powers but instead he does a 180 and makes a serum that will actually give powers to anyone who wants them.  Maya is reasonably pissed about that, until she comes over to his place the next day and finds him acting out scenes from "The Fly".  Almost verbatim.  (Was that an homage, or a ripoff?)  She likes the new Mohinder and they have hot insect sex.  Then Mohinder starts to peel in the mirror, just like Jeff Goldblum.

I have to say that I also found Hiro and Ando's portion of the story to be really poorly written and in fact kind of boring.  To sum up: Hiro is now head of his father's company, he disobeys his father and opens a safe containing a scrap of paper that has half of some formula on it.  As soon as he removes the paper from the safe (if it's so dangerous, why keep it??), some girl who runs really fast steals it.  Hiro and Ando are now chasing her around the world.  Oh, and Hiro jumped to the (apocalyptic) future at one point and saw Ando kill him, so now he doesn't trust Ando.  I don't like that - Hiro and Ando should always be best friends.

So Sylar's on the loose.  He finds a file when he's at the Bennett house that contains info on the "villains" that are being held on Level 5 and decides he would like to take their powers.  When he goes to Level 5, all hell breaks loose.  And so do the prisoners: When Sylar attacks Elle (after killing her father Bob), she freaks and releases some kind of electrical pulse (very cool) that fries the security systems and the bad guys get out, including Jesse with PresentPeter inside. (the guy who plays Jesse also played Weevil on Veronica Mars and it was neat to see him yelling to Elle (Veronica), if only briefly).  So now JessePeter is stuck with another group of bad guys.  Hopefully none of them have bad Irish accents.

HRG also escaped and headed back home to California, where he told Claire that he had to leave again and hunt down the villains who escaped.  He did get a babysitter for her, though: her firestarter mother.

One of the best parts of the show, as always, was Angela Petrelli, who spent almost all of the 2 episodes trying to convince her dim son to get the hell back to the future and stop messing with the timeline.  She's also the head of The Company now that boring bureaucratic Bob is dead.  Sylar was captured during the melee on Level 5, and Angela has taken a particular interest in him.  Like, the kind of interest a mother takes in her son.  Hey, she said it, not me!

To sum up: a few things I liked, and quite a few that I didn't.  There was WAY too much going on.  I hope they calm things down for the next episode.

The best way to watch The Emmys is through YouTube clips the next day.

Ricky Gervais takes back his Emmy.

See you in another life, Brotha.

I was thinking about Scottish people this morning (don't ask) and felt a little pang when I thought of Desmond. I miss him.

Don't like The Hair?

TNT is taking suggestions for a new style for Jerry on Raising the Bar.



Awesome. Way to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!