Beware the Spoilers

CHUCK: Episode 1.10– Chuck Vs. the Nemesis

Okay, I’ll admit it. Despite my hatred for love triangles, this was handled so much better than I thought it would be. The episode I assumed would be the most dramatic and least funny was surprisingly one of the funniest so far. It also had just the right mix of everything this show has become known for– humor, romance, action, government spy stuff, and just a little more humor to top it off. The episode retains the show’s absurdity while telling a good story with some heart.

I’m not sure why the Thanksgiving episode came after Thanksgiving, but it was the perfect offset for the return of Bryce Larkin from the dead. I was little annoyed to see a second triangle between Anna, Morgan and Ellie at the dinner, but it wasn’t overdone and helped to further Morgan’s character development– he’s still ever slowly learning how to be responsible and how to treat women. After how he treated Anna at the end of last episode, I thought it was weird that she took him back, but it’s good for the character.

Matthew Borner turns in an excellent performance as Bryce Larkin. It was a relief to find that he really is a good guy and strange but understandable circumstances forced him to turn Chuck into the intersect and made him look like a rogue agent. He and Sarah have a lot of chemistry, and the performance makes us believe these people really were in love for a long time. I rolled my eyes when I first realized Bryce would be in the show, but now that we’ve seen him, I’m looking forward to seeing him again. He seems to me the epitome of who Chuck wishes he could be.

Now for the funny, because there was plenty of it. The Klingon language was used as a major plot point!!! When Bryce makes Chuck speak Klingon in the teaser to prove who he is, that was brilliant, but to use it to ask Chuck if he is wearing a bullet-proof vest? Genius. That’s the level of humor I’ve come to expect from Chuck, and this one delivered in spades. Making black Friday at the Buy More like a war zone was shot brilliantly and the slow motion action made me laugh. Morgan has more funny moments than anyone this time around, and I usually don’t find him that amusing, but the line, “Jeff, you’re the only guy old enough to know how the registers work” really got me. Funnier than that, though, is Morgan dropping a box on Jeff’s head when he says “pineapple” to denote that the store needs to be evacuated, only to later accidentally throw the megaphone at his head.

I might be a sap here, but I really was sad at the end when Sarah can’t decide which phone to answer. The writing and acting made me like Bryce, so I finally did care about both relationships. And Chuck has a great character moment earlier when he sees Bryce and Sarah fighting together and says they really are great.

4 out of 4 points

HEROES: Episode 1.10– Truth & Consequences

This week most of the subplots we’ve been following were addressed, which was nice. It’s hard to keep up with all the various stories when each episode picks and chooses which of them will appear. This is also one of the best cliffhanger endings for the series, with Hiro and Peter about to fight at the end. That’s going to be a great, epic, comic-book-esque fight and a great way to pull in the audience for next week. Earlier this season, as I’ve said before, the show wasn’t doing a good job of hooking me into the next episode, but it’s gotten much better.

Last week it looked like Suresh had joined the dark side, and he kind of has, but now he’s trying to fix the Company by destroying all the virus strains. That’s an interesting twist I hadn’t considered and now I’m a little happier with the way he’s been pulled into the Company’s fold. He won’t just do everything their way. He thinks they can help, but he wants to make sure that’s really what they’re doing. I don’t think he’ll succeed at changing the Company, but the idea is cool.

I also like Claire deciding to make her powers public. It seemed like a leap from the earlier scene where she wanted to find the Hatian and make him erase her memories, but I take that to more of a moment of panic. I wonder if she’ll actually get the word out about her abilities or if she’ll find out her dad’s still alive and abort that mission entirely.

I hope Silar gets his powers back so he can go back to being scary, interesting, and in all our characters ways. He’s still been creepy in seducing Maya and I thought that was played out very well, but I haven’t liked the isolation of so many of the characters this season. Next year, I hope the main thread forces more of the characters to team up at once.

Next week is the season finale since the writer’s strike isn’t over yet, which is a shame. At the same time, I wonder where the next 11 or 12 episodes were supposed to go, because this sure feels like the end of a season. When the show starts up again after the strike, will the next season finish off whatever this one was supposed to be, or will those episodes be scrapped for a third part? My assumption is that Tim Kring knows exactly where it’s supposed to go and he won’t be able to drop those episodes from production without losing major plot points or reworking where they happen, so I hope this short season doesn’t create a weird, lopsided season 3. I suppose we’ll find out eventually.

3.5 out of 4 points

JOURNEYMAN: Episode 1.10– Blowback

This is easily the best episode so far of the season. I actually have nothing negative to say about it whatsoever. The story is solid and does everything it needs to. It pushes the overall series arc forward, quite a bit further than any other episode has, both by having Livia run into another main character and finally bringing Jack into the fold of people who realize what’s happening to Dan. Not to mention the rather interesting notion that Livia’s purpose for meeting Dan originally was to bring him to Katie who was meant to be with him.

An antagonist needs to have some redeeming quality, something that makes him sympathetic to a viewer. Otherwise, he’s just evil for the sake of it and that isn’t realistic. Most villains don’t see themselves that way. This episode managed it beautifully by having Dan go back in time to meet the 10-year old version of Bennett, who is locked in his room by his father for saying that he hates his mother, who left them both. We come to find that he grows up kidnapping children because he thinks he’s helping them, that he really has become psychotic and doesn’t realize it. He isn’t simply insane; now we have a very believable back story to back it up. I especially like that this isn’t the typical father beating his son story. Bennett doesn’t hate his father for hurting him– he hates his mother for leaving him.

The kid who played the younger Bennett had one of the best child performances I’ve seen in a long time, and combining that with the older Bennett at the end and how he reacts to Dan knowing about his childhood makes me really believe that kid was really him. The way Dan’s gunshot wound was handled after he’s shot in the teaser was very smart, like this show usually is with those things. His wound gets infected because he’s given an outdated antibiotic in the ’80s and he has to get back to the present before he can really function again. I also appreciate some humor in a serious episode like this; the line where Dan slips and mentions Starbucks in an ’80s hospital is priceless.

No Journeyman next week, but it will be back in two. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the execs at NBC don’t axe this show prematurely, but it is on their hit list if Nielson ratings don’t improve. I wish they would pay attention to Internet viewers– there’s a lot of people watching this show that they don’t even know about, and I’m afraid that despite all of fans’ hopes and letter writing campaigns, we’re going to loose it before we’re ever entirely sure of what’s happening with the time travel.

4.0 out of 4 points

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

**Beware the Spoilers**

CHUCK: Episode 1.9– Chuck Vs. the Imported Hard Salami

There’s just something about turning a sci-fi/ spy/ comedy/ thriller/ drama into an occasional soap opera that makes it less funny. I know, I know, you gotta have a little romance here and there, but can’t it be romance? Just straight, Chuck dating Sarah romance? MUST there always be a love triangle in every series I follow? Okay, so it’s going for romantic comedy here, I get it. But more time is spent in this episode dealing with Chuck’s desperation for sex than his actual feelings for Sarah. I don’t get that. In the same episode with a giant “Chuck is a great guy theme” Chuck actually says the line, “Is it just me or is the government out to make sure I never have sex again?”

I’m just not sure the writers on this show are totally cut out for dealing with the romance. Not only does Chuck say that, but he also does absolutely everything he can to keep his new girlfriend Lou with him, after his mission spying on her ex-boyfriend the gun smuggler forces him to lie to her. But at the end, when Sarah finally kisses him while they both think they’re about to be blown up by a bomb, it’s clear that he really wants Sarah. I know he was trying to move on when he thought his and Sarah’s relationship would always be fake, but this is a pretty sensitive guy with feelings. If he likes Sarah that much, would he really be so sweet to this other girl?

Sarah finally admits she’s fallen for Chuck and the Lou plot wasn’t dragged out for several episodes. I did really like Lou a lot and I hope she returns later, but I like Chuck and Sarah’s chemistry more and I want to see their relationship blossom. But wait… it looks like we’ll have to wait even longer to see them together because now Bryce is STILL ALIVE!!! Big surprise. The NBC promos are trying to act like this is a huge deal, but I saw it coming from this first episode. If a series pilot has a character who is dead but talked about a lot and was integral earlier in a character’s life, that show will usually find some way to bring him/her back to life or reveal that he/she was never dead (ala Livia in Journeyman). And even if this had to be done, why NOW? I just wish the show would establish relationships, move on, and explore them as the series continues, rather than focusing on the ones that aren’t happening yet. This is a fun, witty, hilarious show and when romance is the foreground rather than the background, it loses something.

But at least Casey was brilliant this episode. There’s a scene where Casey and Sarah walk in on Chuck in the bathroom while he’s brushing his teeth. “Is there nothing sacred to you people?” Chuck asks. Casey says, “Just the right to bare arms.” And when he claims to be working for the FDA and corners Lou, just before he leaves, he points at her and in an almost accusing tone he says, “And by the way… your salami is delicious!” Priceless.

3 out of 4 points

HEROES: Episode 2.9– Cautionary Tales

What can I say? After last week’s episode, the show feels like Heroes again! Everyone had the best acting I’ve seen this season, especially Hiro and his father. I was a little sad that Hiro decided not to save his father at the end, but the way it was accomplished was so moving that losing George Takai from the series was almost worth the moments here we got to see between father and son. Hiro’s father convinces him, rather nobly, that it is his time to die and that Hiro must use his power responsibly– they can’t play God. And probably the best written scene (next to Hiro’s eulogy at the end) was Hiro explaining to his younger self 17 years earlier at his mother’s funeral that both his parents would have to die and it was the order of things.

Meanwhile, Mohinder has kind of joined the dark side, which seems a little strange since he’s also the voice of the all-wise narrator at the beginning and end of a lot of episodes. We’ve watched this character for over 30 episodes now, and I’m not sure I buy that he would willingly go along with killing anyone, for any reason. He’s been so skeptical of the Company all season that I didn’t make the leap that he was actually being seduced by them. Again, there’s a part of me that wants all the major characters to not suddenly turn evil, or at least join evil, after I’ve put so much stock in them, but I do take comfort in the fact that Mohinder doesn’t just shoot Bennett because Bob tells him to. He shoots him to save Bob, which is at least a little noble.

We finally find out who killed Hiro’s father, which I kind of called last week once we learned that Adam was at the Company before the beginning of this season. He would be the person with the biggest vendetta against them, and frankly, it’s hard to blame them. The Company has turned into one big frightening underground freak show, and I’m really ready for it to be taken down. There has been such a focus on it this year that I’ll be very disappointed if it isn’t completely destroyed by the end of the season. Parkman discovering he has greater power than he thought was forced at first, I thought, but in this episode, it’s giving his character room to grow. He spent the whole episode experimenting with his ability to telepathically persuade people to do anything, and then Mrs. Petrelli (in her best performance this year) tells him that if he continues, he will become his father, the Nightmare Man. Is it worth the risk? Those are the kinds of questions I like to see characters wrestle with. And although I still hate that he’s stayed pretty evil after the lesson I thought he learned last year, I’m looking forward to seeing what Bennett does when he gets out of that facility.

We finally saw some more action this week and the flying effects looked much better to me than they had in the past. The CG looked more natural and better integrated with the actors, which is good, because there was quite a lot of it. The effect where Hiro stops time to look at his father’s killer is seamless as always and the scene looked quite dark and epic.

3.5 out of 4 points

JOURNEYMAN: Episode 1.9– Emily

This episode is the culmination of everything that has led up to it and really managed to capture the essence of the show. Unlike my one complaint from last week’s “Winterland,” the time travel wasn’t just a B-story that had to be thrown in to follow the set formula of the show. Instead of just helping Emily, the girl who was kidnapped by a man named Bennett, like he is supposed to, Dan tries to stop Bennett for good. At the end of the episode, we find that his decision has come back to bite him, just like Livia said it would. Dan doesn’t know it yet, but now that Bennett’s out of jail, he’s going to get his revenge on Dan for putting him there.

This is what can set a show like this apart from its predecessors. It has to be more than figure out who you’re supposed to help, help that person, everything’s okay until next week when it all starts over again, or it’s Quantum Leap. When the time travel affects the present, like the money from the 70s Dan was caught with, and like Bennett in this episode, the show is working to its full potential. Add to that the fact that every aspect of Dan’s personal life was dealt with this time and you have a really stellar episode. In forty-five minutes, we saw the issue with his brother thinking he’s insane, his kid having behavioral problems, his wife throwing a mug of coffee at a wall because Dan’s time traveling is getting worse, and Dan’s boss having to justify to the guy from the FBI why Dan hasn’t had many by-lines in the paper lately. This stuff is great because all of it is because of Dan’s condition. The time travel, this time, completely affected the present, in more than one way. And I also love that last week, Livia said the time jumps would get longer, and this week, they really were a little longer.

I was really sad that Dan screwed up time so the conversation he had with Jack about his time traveling never happened. He was finally starting to buy it, which I’ve been waiting for so that Jack can have more of a function than simply make Dan’s life really hard. At first I thought it was an annoying plot device, but seeing the preview for next week, it still looks like Jack is going to believe in it sooner rather than later. Everything is about to come to a head, and I still hope that includes our finding out more about the nature of time travel. There was one misplaced scene in this episode– back in 2001, Dan goes to his old house to see his son when he was a baby. This happens right after an intense scene where he tells Livia he’s going to stop Bennett and to hell with the consequences. It just didn’t fit, and Five For Fighting’s “Superman” especially didn’t fit as the background music there.

3.5 out of 4 points

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan