October 28, 2008
The “Villains” storyline pressed on this week with plenty of action and some great character crossovers. As it turns out, Nathan and Tracy did not leave Mohinder’s lab at the end of the last episode, but instead they stuck around to face Mohinder. Mohinder gave them the run around though, grabbing Maya from the wall and escaping. Soon afterwards, we learn that Mohinder went to Pinehearst to see Daddy Petrelli, who wants to enlist him. It’s beneficial to both parties, seeing as how Mohinder wants to find a way to retain his abilities but maintain control, while Daddy Petrelli wants Mohinder for his research. As for Nathan and Tracy, Nathan made a call to Noah who showed up at Mohinder’s lab with Meredith. Claire’s biological mother showing with Claire’s adoptive father to meet Claire’s biological father and…I guess Tracy is sort of the odd girl out of this equation.
Speaking of Claire, she returned home with her mother to find Elle sitting in her home, powers completely on the fritz. After a pretty nasty battle between the two, they realize that they can help each other by tracking down Pinehearst and finding a way to control their abilities (as you may recall, Claire’s powers are sort of on the fritz seeing as how she no longer feels pain). A particularly great scene was this pair on a plane. Elle’s powers started affecting the plane, which could have potentially caused the plane to crash, but Claire grabbed Elle’s hand, electrocuting herself and keeping the plane’s electricity from shorting out. Very cool. It wasn’t long before this two found themselves standing just outside of the Pinehearst building, just in time to see Peter get thrown out of a seven story window…hang tight for a moment and I’ll fill you in on the how and why of that.
Parkman finally did something! Daddy Petrelli sent Daphne to kill Parkman, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Also, it’s important to note that Morty (Parkman’s father) who has been working for Daddy Petrelli refused to let him kill Parkman…resulting in Daddy Petrelli telekinetically snapping Morty’s neck. It seemed as if Parkman finally won Daphne over, and they even bonded over the fact that when Knox showed up to finish the job Daphne was supposed to take care of, Parkman used his powers to make Knox think that he punched a hole through Parkman and killed him (commercial break left us hanging for a moment there). But Parkman’s really got a handle on his powers these days, and he’s getting good. But what he’s got to watch out for is that Daphne is still in touch with Daddy Petrelli, who has apparently ordered her to play things out as if she’s on his side.
As for the events that unfolded at Pinehearst, Daddy Petrelli (yeah, even I’m getting sick of this not so clever nickname, so from here on out I’ll use Mr. Petrelli, but probably once in awhile use Daddy Petrelli again) has a powerless Peter held captive, fully prepared to experiment on him. We saw a deal struck up between Mohinder and Mr. Petrelli, just after (or possibly before) Mr. Petrelli took Maya’s powers away and let her hit the road to freedom. Mohinder gets ready to experiment on Peter, but Sylar shows up in time to kick some serious ass. Unfortunately, Mr. Petrelli happens to kick just a little bit more ass and while Peter gets away, Sylar is captured by his father (this whole Sylar being the “lost” Petrelli thing has really been a bit underexplained, hasn’t it? Anyone agree?). Sylar and Mr. Petrelli exchange a few words, just enough for Sylar to be won over by his newfound father, so when Peter shows up to bale him out, Sylar refuses to go and then throws him out of that seven story window.
Here, Peter crosses paths with Claire and Elle. Now I immediately questioned how Peter, sans-abilities, could survive, let alone walk after a fall like that, but to my good fortune, they explain that Sylar must have slowed his fall to let him survive. Sylar’s just chockful of surprises this season, maybe he’s looking to take down his old man from the inside, maybe he’s just looking to hear more of what his old man has to say. Only time will tell. Either way, Elle decides to go into Pinehearst, hoping they will take her abilities away just as they had done to Peter, while Claire helps Peter escape, and contacts Nathan, her biological father, because she’s not on great terms with Noah, her adoptive father. It is then that Nathan, Tracy, Peter, and Claire are able to put together their collective knowledge, just enough for Nathan to make a rash decision and go after his father…with Tracy in tow. My issue with that though…Nathan can fly. Yeah, it’s kind of cool, but like, Nathan can fly and Mr. Petrelli is shooting like…I don’t know, it could be roughly 100 different kinds of smoke. This ain’t going to be much of a fight, so Nathan for damn sure better think some things through before he approaches his father with fighting words.
New episode in two weeks.
Again, season 3 of “Heroes” continues to be nothing short of awesome. As I theorized after the last episode, Hiro did not kill Ando. Yup, Hiro is still one of the good guys, and instead, he used his powers to travel to a magic shop for a cartridge of fake blood, and back in time to warn Ando and tell him to wear the blood cartridge. I totally dug how they handled this, leaving us hanging for a week on what Hiro actually did to trick Daphne and Knox into thinking he was a true badass. As usual, their storyline was pretty amusing, as they were sent by Daphne to track down a guy in Africa who sees the future (coincidentally, the same guy Parkman has spent the last few episodes with). After a few botched attempts at sneaking up on him (Hiro used his abilities to sneak up on him, but the guy kept knocking Hiro unconscious just after Hiro would see a painting of himself getting knocked out), Hiro finally snuck up on him sans-powers.
Elsewhere, Claire and Mrs. Bennett went to find Meredith, Claire’s biological mother, who we last saw held captive by a creepy pedophile-looking guy (one of the villains who escaped) in some sort of abandoned puppet theater. As it turns out, this particular villain’s ability is to control people, not their minds, but their bodies (hence him holing up in a puppet theater I guess). Unfortunately, Claire and Mrs. Bennett get caught and find themselves at a table with Meredith, unable to control their bodies. The puppeteer throws a gun in the mix and forces them to hold each other at gun point, which in the end allows Claire to pull a truly badass stunt by telling her mother to shoot her, making the puppeteer think Claire is dead. This gave Claire a chance to knock the puppeteer out and save the day. I think I love this girl.
Nathan and Nikki…I mean Tracy (this really is such a lame attempt to keep Ali Larter in the show) pay Mohinder a visit…everybody’s favorite psycho these days. He tricks them into thinking he’s found a cure for people with abilities, but really injects them with a serum to knock them out. I guess knocking other people out is the theme that really tied all of the individual storylines together this week. Anyway, Mohinder then chains them down to respective tables, which is where I honestly expected them to remain for a long stretch of episodes (anyone else feel like Nathan tends to be underwritten?), but they manage to escape when Nikki…I mean Tracy (that’s the last time I’ll do that) gets Mohinder to grab her hand and she freezes his arm, giving herself and Nathan an opportunity to get free.
Last up, Peter and Sylar bonded over their “hunger” and Sylar turned down Daphne’s invite to team up with the villains (has this guy really gone soft on us?). As for Peter, he went and tracked down Daddy Petrelli, storming in and shooting seven different kinds of smoke (with all the abilities Peter’s collected, this is entirely possible). Unfortunately, Daddy Petrelli won by tricking Peter into coming in for the real thing, a father-son hug. Now we learned earlier in the episode that by touching someone, Daddy Petrelli can take their powers. Something that was very upsetting for me, was that we learned this when he stole Adam’s power, which killed Adam, who’s a character I actually liked a lot. Well, Daddy Petrelli took every single one of Peter’s powers, which kind of sucks because Peter was getting really good at juggling all those powers at once, but it’s also kind of awesome because now, hopefully for the rest of the season, we get to see Robert Forster storming around with a pretty impressive arsenal of powers. And that’ll pretty much be it for that episode.
(Didn’t mention Parkman because he spent the entire episode waiting around in an airport for Daphne, and as usual, he’s been entirely useless this season. Come on, in the future episode he was a stay-at-home-dad. Really?)
October 26, 2008
At this point, I feel like we’re really just waiting out the merge. The long and short of it is that the Kota tribe is continuing to kick the crap out of the Fang tribe, a ritual that’s beginning to wear thin on Fang. Over at Kota, things seem to be going just fine. Their biggest problem is that Dan seems to be eating a little bit more than his share, and hey, who wouldn’t be mildly irritated by that? But really, I think they have to stop and think, and recognize that this is Dan. Dan has proven so far that he’s basically an idiot, could anyone really expect much from him anyway?
Fang. Where do I begin? Dare I ask another rhetorical question? Guess so. In any case, everybody’s tired and worn down and really not altogether happy with each other. Ace and Matty make an unlikely alliance to get each other to the merge, along with Sugar and Ken. They make a pact in which Ace swears on his mother’s life and Matty swears on his girl. Here’s my issue. They make this pact very seriously, as if there will be repercussions if said pact is broken. Come on, if Matty sees a better opportunity and screws over Ace, is Ace going to collect Matty’s girlfriend’s life? Sorry for posing another rhetorical question. But like, think about it, this pact is meaningless. If they want to really swear on something, they should trade something as collateral damage or something. Maybe share a scandalous secret with each other that will be exposed in the event of either of them breaking the pact. Eh, one man’s opinion I guess.
The rest of the tribe performed horribly as usual. Crystal, the former Olympian, is proving herself to pretty much be the biggest pain in the ass out there. Kelly, while she may be cute, she sure has absolutely no idea how to make friends, or to at least simply not rub people the wrong way. Sugar…gave Ace the immunity idol! I don’t care who you trust, I don’t care who you like, there is one rule when it comes to the immunity idol and that’s to friggin’ hold onto it! Ken’s still holding in there, and for the time being, he seems to probably be the safest guy in the tribe.
As per usual, we were led to believe that this tribal council (I think it’s pretty much implied at this point that Fang found themselves there again this week) could potentially stir things up. There was early talk of Crystal and there was certainly talk of Ace, but in the end, Kelly had finally pissed off enough people that she was deemed the most useless one there. I guess referring to her as the most useless is a bit harsh, because really it probably came down to the fact that she has no friends in this game. Couldn’t make friends in Kota. Made friends for about a day in Fang. We kind of saw this coming.
Next week is a double elimination, both tribes go to tribal council, and it looks like there’s going to be a lot of curve balls, primarily in Kota. My bets are that it’ll be Dan and Crystal who leave tribal council alone and torchless.
And one last thing. Ace, no one’s buying that accent of yours for a second. It comes and goes, and I’m really hoping that someone calls you out on it soon.
October 21, 2008
Well, once again the Kota tribe is getting along just fine while the Fang tribe continues to suffer and hate each other. Dan, part of the new Kota tribe, has gone on to state that he wants to see them stick together as 7, which is funny coming from him because I remember early on he completely avoided taking any leadership position. Now suddenly, he’s the posterboy for tribe unity. Marcus doesn’t 100% buy this, which is why Marcus is 100% part of my fantasy team and I’m sure has a nearly guaranteed seat in the final 4.
As for Fang…I really hate GC. And Ace. And basically this tribe as a whole rubs me the wrong way. No one has a great attitude, no one works well together, everyone has different motives, and honestly, they are just waiting to get picked off. GC has the worst attitude of all, and big surprise, he got voted off at tribal council because no one could handle his flakey, quitter attitude. I can hardly imagine someone less deserving of being in this game right now, so I was amazed to see that they actually got rid of him. In situations like this, they usually knock out someone who’s deemed a threat even though that person may still be beneficial to the tribe prior to the merge, but no, they actually did something right.
Ace is a different story from GC. I hate Ace. Ace thinks he’s got this whole game figured out, as if everyone’s playing right into his hand. Ace’s only alliance is Sugar! At one point he said something to her like, “At some point, I may call on you, to use the idol…” Come on, this guy really thinks he’s got a plan? He’s got nothing! His tribe is getting picked off, he thinks it’s a good thing that they’re collapsing but I don’t see how he thinks he’s going to survive (no pun intended) past the merge in any possible way. He would have to have a life supply of immunity idols to that, and possibly even more than one alliance. In one way, I want this guy gone. In another way, I’m sort of enjoying watching this guy think he’s running the game. It’s pathetic, but fun.
Well, from what I see in clips from next week, Ace makes some sort of arrangement with Matty! Can’t wait to see how that plays out!
October 15, 2008
All right, I’ve been slacking, but now I’ve got three episodes of “Heroes” that I’m going to blow through in one post. Here it goes:
Episode 3: We left off with Peter on the run with a couple of not-so-nice guys, as he happened to be trapped in the body of another not-so-nice guy, and so, using their various abilities, they hold up a bank. Cops show up, but cops aren’t much of a match for Peter’s motley crew, so obviously this is a matter to be handled by the Company. Noah takes up his old position in hopes of rounding up all the escaped villains, but he is surprised to see that Angela Petrelli has paired him up with someone we did not expect to ever be part of the Company…Sylar. Long story short, Noah and Sylar got into a standoff with Peter (in the body of a guy with a supersonic voice), and future Peter finally showed up to break Peter out of this guy’s body. Just when things seemed to be civil, Sylar’s hunger got the better of him and he just needed that supersonic ability. Guess rehab hasn’t completely paid off yet, but Angela seemed forgiving.
Outside of that, Claire looked to Meredith, her birth mother, to train her to fight and survive. Yes! Claire getting a little edge and prepping to start kicking some ass. We are not opposed to this!
Episode 4: (This may have bits of Episode 3 mixed in, but hey, it’s all part of the bigger storyline so whatever) Every season has that trip to the future where the world is just a mess and we see the heroes up to no good all over the place…this was that episode basically. Peter travelled to the future with future Peter, where future Peter was gunned down by Claire, and Peter was then forced to navigate the world on his own searching for answers (while on the run because Claire’s crew was trying to kill him). Did I mention that this future included an ass-kicking Claire leading a group that includes Daphne and Knox (the one villain who broke out and feeds off of people’s fear for strength)? It did. Furthermore, it included a shadowy, reptilian Mohinder (awesome!), and an oddly pleasant version of Sylar (who has apparently fathered a son named Noah).
Peter goes to Sylar to gain his power, but while at Sylar’s house Claire and company (not the Company, just Claire’s little team) showed up and a standoff ensued. Things were not handled in a civil manner, resulting in little Noah’s death and Sylar exploding (can’t forget about that radioactive ability from season 1, which I’m not quite sure if Sylar ever acquired it from that particular guy).
In the end up, Peter returned to the present with Sylar’s hunger, Claire is currently on a road trip to track down some villains, Angela lets Hiro and Ando go to bust out Adam Monroe from six feet under (you may recall that Hiro buried Adam alive at the end of last season), Nathan sleeps with Tracy after stopping her from killing herself, Parkman is still in Africa, and Mohinder is continuing to act kind of shady…
Episode 5: I can probably talk about this episode a bit more coherently because it’s fresh in my head, so apologies for any and possibly all of the above. First up, Claire tracks down one of the villains, a guy who can create vortexes, but she learns that he’s not really bad, just made a mistake. Sure enough, Noah and Sylar show up just in time to ruin his chances of reuniting with his family. Later on, they find him again, and Noah puts a gun to his head and tells him that if he destroys Sylar, he can walk. Like everyone else, Noah’s morality has become more and more questionable, clearly. After all was said and done, the so-called villain opened a vortex and shot himself into it, unable to kill anyone ever again. Claire and Noah are not on great terms.
Hiro and Ando successfully bust Adam out and convince him to help them track down the formula. As would be expected, especially in Hiro’s case, things go bad when Adam gets in a fight at a bar and they lose him. Later on we see Knox putting him into the back of a van. This isn’t the craziest part of Hiro’s journey this episode though. When Daphne (Speedster) and Knox confront Hiro about joining them and finding the formula, Knox forces Hiro to prove his loyalty by killing Ando. It’s been my experience that best friends don’t kill best friends…but Hiro picks up a sword and stabs Ando. Ando is dead. And Hiro killed him. Weird. Now I have to believe that Hiro has some greater plan here, that he plans on going back in time and saving Ando, but we’ve been down this road with his father, and he realized he can’t stop death, so honestly, I have no idea what will happen.
As for Daphne, Nathan isn’t the only one seeing Linderman. It seems that Daphne is working for Linderman in tracking down the formula, but it’s not really Linderman or Linderman’s ghost, or some strange trippy hallucination. Well, actually, it sort of is a strange trippy hallucination, but it’s been created by Parkman’s father, who I believe we last saw trapped in his own trippy hallucination by his son. Is Parkman’s father pulling the strings? Nope. Parkman’s father is working for…Mr. Petrelli? Yup, you got to hand it to those Petrellis, they don’t die easily. I’m still not sure what this greater plan is, but it somehow revolves around Daphne, Knox, Hiro, and Matt Parkman working together (who is apparently the last one they need to recruit).
As for, Nathan and Tracy pay a visit to Angela Petrelli, where they learn that Nikki, Tracy, a third sister, and Nathan (!!!) were all artificially given their abilities in a lab. We previously learned this when Tracy visited a doctor, whom she incidently froze to death and killed (rendering him useless for further information). Nathan was pretty pissed to find all this out, and was further pissed to find his brother Peter strapped to a table…who wouldn’t be pissed to find out that their mother is a horrible person strapping their children to tables, sticking them with needles, and giving them strange abilities?
Last up, Mohinder! He’s getting sketchier and sketchier. Early on this episode we saw him knock out a drug dealer, and now he’s got people webbed up in his lab. Is he feeding on these people or something? Could be. When Maya learned this, she was quite creeped out, and Mohinder webbed her up as well. Remember when this guy was the smart, level-headed scientist finding purpose for all these people with emerging abilities. This honestly just may be one of the more interesting storylines. But what this all boils down to is that this season of “Heroes” is kicking ass and has completed redeemed everything that went wrong with last season.
October 12, 2008
Someone’s got to say, and I guess it’s going to be me. “Survivor” was awesome this week. Just as everyone was growing comfortable in their alliances, Jeff Probst went there. The tribes were mixed up, and honestly, it could have gone worse. For the most part, alliances managed to hold together, and everyone pulled through it okay. Except Jacquie. You know, Jacquie, once allied with Marcus, Charlie, Corrinne, and Bob? Yeah, she did not wind up in the same tribe as Marcus, Charlie, Corrinne, and Bob, and as a result, she somehow wound up with a target on her back. Sucks. Granted, this bumped Bob up into the core four so if it took Jacquie getting knocked out for that to happen, then hey, let’s just say I won’t stop watching the show.
Kelly managed to make friends and then somehow make waves. Just as she was brought into an alliance with GC, Crystal, and Ken, somehow her performance at the immunity challenge got her on the chopping block. Kelly’s a cute girl, but wow she is bad at making friends in this game. She was on the outs in the original Kota tribe, and when she finally has a shot at redemption, she blows it. Does she just not want to be there or what?
Anyway, Jacquie aside, the mix up definitely helped some people, like Randy. Randy’s playing a short term game right now, and basically his strategy seems to be voting with the stronger group of people, and pretty much doing whatever he has to do so long as his name doesn’t come up. Why do I have a strange feeling that this is somehow going to pay off for him and he’ll at least find his way to the final 6? As for Ace and Sugar, while Kelly rubbed Ace’s name in the dirt a bit, it seems like Ace and Sugar may be wise to join up with GC, Crystal, and Ken. Not that I necessarily saw sparks flying there, but these two smaller groups are outnumbered and not all that popular, and I’d love to see them get picked off one by one, but they’d be stupid to let that happen. Then again, look at them, none of them have proven to be terribly smart (except Sugar who found the immunity idol), but hey, it’s early. We’ll see what happens.
October 7, 2008
“Survivor: Gabon” this week was good, but not necessarily great. Nothing significant happened, just sort of the same things we saw going down last week. The Fang tribe is still dumb as hell, yet, they managed to pull out two victories in challenges, sending Kota to their first tribal council. Despite there being a general dislike for Ace, everyone played it smart and voted out Paloma, whose obviously a nice girl but not necessarily a crucial player to have around. She was not involved in a major alliance, did very little for the tribe in challenges, and I’m sure she was not nor would she have ever been, a major provider around camp. Cute girl, but these are the players they really should be weeded out early on. That way, when I get to watch the 3-hour finale come December, I’m not sitting there infuriated that the final 2 happen to be 2 young girls who rode coattails all the way to the end, claiming they played a strategic game by flying under the radar, when really they did absolutely nothing to deserve a victory in this game.
Moving on, my alliance solidified this week as Bob has agreed to maintain a strong alliance of 5 with Marcus, Charlie, Jacqui, and Corrinne. And by the way, Corrinne impressed me this week as she proved to be a strong strategic player that definitely reminds me of last season’s winner, Parvati. That said, I immediately added her to my fantasy team. And yes, I just admitted that I have a “Survivor” fantasy team.
As for the rest of Kota, Ace is definitely on the outs with most of the tribe, but it seems as if they’re playing a smart game collectively, and hopefully they’re planning on keeping him until they get closer to the merge, because he’s definitely one of the stronger players when it comes to challenges. As for his main squeeze Sugar (yup, there’s a girl named Sugar this season, and yup, she’s some sort of fetish model from what I gather), she got sent to Exile and made Dan (the attorney who went to Exile last week) look even dumber than I thought he was last week in that she found the immunity idol. This bothered me, because I’m not a fan of Sugar, and would’ve rather seen someone like Bob (I swear to God if this guy doesn’t win…) score the idol.
Over at the Fang camp, Randy has officially gone on record saying that his tribe is full of idiots, which sounds somewhat cold, but he’s right. GC is a complete idiot, and somehow this group of people collectively agreed that he would make the best leader. Needless to say, I was happy to see Randy and GC butt heads a bit, because wow, GC is just straight up stupid but refuses to admit that he knows nothing about what he’s talking about. I hate this tribe and all I want is to see them picked off one by one. They honestly deserve each other. Till next episode…