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Here it is, the “Villains” volume came to an end this week, and it was by no stretch short on the action. We watched some characters die, some scored sweet new powers, some got taken out of commission, and some just straight up backstabbed their own brother (Nathan, cough-cough). Quick update on where everybody is: Hiro is still trapped in the past, desperately in need of saving, but his entourage (Ando, Parkman, and Daphne) have a plan to steal the formula from Pinehearst, inject Ando and hope that he’ll somehow get a time-travelling ability (mind you, I lacked faith in this plan because there are no guarantees with abilities). After killing Daddy P over at Pinehearst, Sylar made his way to Primatech where he put the entire facility into lockdown, trapping Claire, Noah, Angela, and Meredith in their with him…Claire and Noah were packing shotguns, by the way. Now with Daddy P dead, Peter found himself deadset on stopping the formula from being used, which conflicted with Nathan’s opinion on the matter. And so, the stage is set…

After Peter and Nathan exchange some words over the dead body of their father (Peter: “Bro, using that formula is totally whack,” Nathan: “Dude…I completely disagree), they part ways, but Peter makes his way into the lab and starts trashing the place, much to the dismay of Mohinder.  Fortunately, Flint and Knox showed up, realizing that if this formula is used, then their status as people with abilities makes them average, so they also decide to trash the place and become Peter’s thugs. Mohinder catches a pretty bad beating from them, and Knox then makes his way to Nathan’s office. Knox maintains the upper hand for a short time, but Nathan takes a shot at him with a glass ball sitting on the desk, and then Tracy shows up and finishes the job by freezing him. What I fail to understand about Nathan, is that his flying ability is probably more powerful than people give it credit for, he could use it for a pretty good short range attack (like he did to the Haitian’s brother), but he doesn’t recognize his own potential. Disappointing.

At Primatech, Sylar talks eerily over the speakers while Noah attempts to find him and somehow subdue him. Claire recalls from season 1 that there is a spot in the back of her head that if you jab something into it, she will shut down. Sylar has her power, so it should work the same way. With that, Claire splits off to keep Angela safe, while Noah and Meredith release some of the inmates, explaining that they’re all locked in Primatech together, so their common goal is to take down Sylar. Among this group was that creepy puppeteer that held Meredith, Claire, and Mrs. Bennett hostage earlier this (more…)

Defying the odds, Bob triumphed over everyone, winning not only the million, but an extra $100 thousand for being voted the player of the season by the fans. Here’s a guy who has been one of the coolest and most interesting players out there since day 1, and has been on the chopping block since that controversial tribe mix-up just before the merge, that directly resulted in Marcus’s elimination and thereby causing the fall of the Kota 6. Somehow, Bob held his own through this game, and while it came close with the votes between him and Susie (4-3, people actually voted for Susie to win), a deserving player pulled out the victory.

After Crystal was voted out, Kenny continued guilt tripping Bob about not giving him immunity, and then guilt tripped everyone else about how he had no idea what was going down at tribal council that night. The next day was another immunity challenge, which Bob won, and they once again found themselves at tribal council. Kenny continued to plead his case that his agreement with Bob was that Bob would sacrifice his own life in this game to save Kenny’s, but Bob countered that their deal did not involve Kenny getting immunity from Bob and then turning around and scheming against Bob. A million bucks on the line…long story short, Bob’s not a stupid guy…evidently, Kenny thinks so. Ultimately, Kenny was voted out, which was expected. Granted, the strategy behind this was that Susie would be less of a threat than Kenny in the final immunity challenge…little did we all know…

As per usual, the final group of castaways did their little spirit journey that acts as a clip show to remember all the castaways that have since been voted out…yup, all the irritating ones from the beginning, all the power players from the middle, and all the ones they used to have alliances with from more recent councils. This finally lead them to the last immunity challenge, which usually involves balancing in some shape or form for hours on end, and had that been the case, Susie would’ve been totally gone. But no, Jeff Probst threw them a hail Mary on the 4th down and this final challenge (more…)

While all did not go according to plan at the last tribal council, Bob did manage to shake things up enough around camp so that he somehow found himself in a powerful role. Immediately after council, Matty confronted Kenny on throwing a vote his way, realizing that he was now on the chopping block for being a physical threat in this game. After being called out, Kenny confronted Bob about messing up his game, and so Bob agreed to compensate for that by promising to give Kenny immunity if he won it. Contrary to Kenny once playing the role of the strategic powerhouse, this sudden shake-up has reduced his game to acting pathetic and gaining sympathy. I’m sort of losing respect for Kenny now…

At the reward challenge, Bob was victorious and won a trip to a sort of gorilla zoo, bringing Crystal and Kenny along in hopes of staying on good terms and getting them to vote with him. Great success, because Crystal and Kenny seem pretty willing to go forth with their plan of getting Matty out and using Bob to their advantage. What they didn’t count on, is the power of Sugar’s observation (more…)

As you may recall from last week, Hiro and Claire took a trip to 16 years ago when Claire was first entrusted to Noah Bennett by Kaito Nakamura. It is then, that Hiro and Claire decide to follow their past selves so that Hiro can find a way to heal his memory and Claire can find a way to stop herself from becoming the catalyst. Hiro winds up overhearing a conversation between his father and mother in which they discuss the catalyst, and his mother insists that it has to be done today and that she wants it to be Hiro, but Kaito refuses and says Hiro is too irresponsible and will never amount to anything. Elsewhere, Claire poses as a neighbor and helps Mrs. Bennett with the baby while Noah is at work. Granted, when Noah shows up, he’s not too happy that Mrs. Bennett has let some stranger watch the baby, and furthermore, he calls Claire out on not being who she claims to be. It is then that the phone starts ringing, and Claire begins pleading with Noah not to answer that phone, knowing that it is the call from Kaito that will make Claire the catalyst, and somehow, she gets to Noah and he doesn’t pick up the phone. Mission accomplished…sort of.

Hiro on the other hand, after disasterously posing as the Nakamura’s new chef, reveals to his mother that he is her son and can travel through space and time. After having seen that she also has an ability, he tells her about his memories being wiped clean and asks her if she can heal them, which she does. Furthermore, he explains all that he is done, and tells her that he is prepared to take on the responsibility of being the catalyst. She agrees, and passes on the light to him, but dies in doing so. Back on the rooftop, Hiro and Claire reunite, informing each other of their successes, but they are interrupted by Mr. Petrelli, who takes Hiro’s ability as well as the catalyst, then throws Hiro off the ledge (we later learn that he is hanging onto a post on the edge of the building, but he’s powerless) and sends Claire back to the present.

Hiro’s entourage back in the present (Parkman, Daphne, and Ando) track down the bike messenger with the last issue of “9th Wonders” and get their hands on it. After reading it, they see that Hiro is trapped in the past, and that somebody must save him, but will need to get the powers to do so. Ando believes that this is his calling…so we just might get to see Ando receive a power by the end of this arc.

As for Sylar, we last saw this guy return to his bad ways, killing Elle and once again going completely rogue. Now he’s got names and numbers of people with abilities, I assume from the time he spent with Mr. Petrelli, so he heads to an office building where there is a woman who is a human lie detector. He plans to use this ability to call Mr. Petrelli out on whether or not he really is his father, after Noah suggested in the last episode that it was all just a way of gaining Sylar’s allegiance.

As shown in the above, Sylar’s return to his previous badass state means he has no problem cracking skulls (literally) and getting his hands dirty (also literally).

Nathan made his way back to Pinehearst, informing his father that he will now be in charge of the operations and (more…)

“Survivor” had a sour beginning this week when Bob killed everyone’s buzz after tribal council. Despite going along with Sugar’s little prank on Randy, making him think he had the hidden immunity idol, Bob completely disapproved of everyone laughing and belittling Randy. Everyone got over it and hit the hay for the night.

The next day was the reward challenge, where the only reward was pizza, beer, and a video message from home. Bob pulled out a victory and got to enjoy a video message from his wife, until he was interrupted…by his wife in person! Emotions ran high, and finally Bob and his wife returned to camp to meet up with the other castaways who did not get to see their loved ones…until Bob called them all in! The loved ones episode is a “Survivor” staple, and always one of the better ones. Emotions are shooting all over the place and it’s hard not to get sucked into it. And then, just when you think you can’t possibly feel any greater…Matty takes his girlfriend down to the river and proposes. Ah, young love.

Once the loved ones have gone and everyone’s heads are back in the game, Bob decided it was time he make another fake idol. The idea behind this was that he would subtly spread the rumor that back when Marcus threw the immunity idol into the ocean, he really pocketed it and hid it around camp. Yup, it’s total bull, but Bob and Corrine are on the chopping block so they really have nothing left to lose at this point.

The immunity challenge involved answered questions, and the more you got right, the more shots you had to take at a target… (more…)

If there has been one new show that’s been worth watching this fall, it’s “Fringe.” Immediately, I can think of two reasons why I knew this series would be good: 1) J.J. Abrams produces it and 2) his main writing team is Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci (the guys who made “Transformers” a ridiculously good movie). Basically, the show deals with the idea that there is something referred to as “the pattern,” a series of strange sort of paranormal events occurring as a result of someone using the world as their own personal lab rat. Yes, this does sound lame, but no, it is not.

The first episode deals with the FBI opening a program to deal with the pattern after a bizarre occurrence causes FBI Agent Olivia Dunham’s boyfriend, FBI Agent John Scott, to fall into a coma while his skin became transparent. With only a short time to get to the bottom of this, her superior, Agent Broyles, explains the pattern to her and gives her the name of Dr. Walter Bishop, a scientist who has spent the last 17 years in an institution. To get to him though, she must recruit his estranged son, Peter Bishop, a young prodigy who can’t seem to stay out of trouble. Together, they must find a way to save John Scott and catch whoever was behind the events that set this into motion. They sort of find answers, but those answers sort of wind up leading into more questions (typical J.J. Abrams). Those answers/questions are found at forward-thinking company called Massive Dynamics, owned by former colleague to Dr. Bishop, the mysterious and as yet unseen William Bell.

Basically, the end of the first episode proved that all was not what it seemed, as once John Scott was saved it was revealed he was a bad guy and was involved with Massive Dynamics. Most of the episodes that followed the premiere involved other strange paranormal events such as a child being conceived only to be born minutes later and to die of old age after barely hours or a man with electrical charges running through him that could… (more…)

Picking up where we left off last week, you may recall that the heroes and villains were left completely powerless during an eclipse. This left Hiro and Ando in a comic book shop still trying to jog Hiro’s memory, Daphne confronting Parkman with the fact that she suffers from cerebral palsy, Nathan being captured by the Haitian’s brother in Haiti, Claire suffering a bullet wound, Sylar and Elle making sexy conversation in an abandoned house, and Noah pointing the scope of his sniper rifle at Sylar and Elle making sexy conversation in an abandoned house. Oh yeah, and over at Pinehearst Mohinder was held against his will by Mr. Petrelli and Flint.

Over in Haiti, Nathan is tied up in a hut…that is until Peter and the Haitian make a daring rescue. You may recall that the Haitian’s brother has the ability of invulnerability, which makes the village people view him as a sort of god, and the Haitian is really the only one who can stop him. After they bust Nathan out, the Haitian has a gun pointed at his brother, which during the eclipse, one bullet could easily take this guy down, but at the same time, I guess the Haitian was grappling with the fact that he was going to kill his own flesh and blood. He settled for knocking him out with the butt of the rifle. They rush off into the woods, at which point Peter insists that he hang back and hold off the soldiers because at this point he’s expendable. Nathan won’t allow it, but Peter says, “Dude, have a little faith,” and finally Nathan gives his blessing with an affirmative, “Bro,” and fist pound. Peter rushes off, firing off the gun in all sorts of directions (remember how this guy used to be a male nurse?), and finally he’s out of bullets. Naturally, Nathan and the Haitian came back…they totally had his back, and now that the eclipse has ended, they’re powers have returned. The problem with this is that the Haitian’s brother also has his invulnerability power. Nathan makes a completely badass move by flying at him full speed (it was like seeing a Mortal Kombat specialty move in real life), demolishing the front end of a jeep. Unfortunately, this does very little to faze the Haitian’s brother, and it is clear that it’s up to the Haitian to take him down once and for all. The Haitian grabs his brothers head, works his crazy magic and kills him. Back to the woods, but Nathan throws a wrench in the plan when he explains to Peter that their father is right and by giving people powers they could do so much good for the world just like how they saved the village. With that, Nathan tells Peter he can hit up the embassy for a ride home and he takes off. It’s kind of like your big brother driving to school but making you take the bus. Total dis.

Back in the states, Hiro and Ando are at the comic shop where Seth Green and Breckin Meyer help piece together all the events of “9th Wonders” comics to help Hiro remember. Together they attempt to put it altogether, but Hiro finds the memories too troubling, seeing how has father died and how he’s had several botched attempts in saving the world. Believe it or not, Seth Green is the voice of reason telling Hiro that a true hero puts the world before himself, at which point Hiro gets his act together and they piece together what Hiro must do next. He must go find Claire and bring her back to a past memory, at which point he should regain all his memories. Once the eclipse has run its course, he takes off and Parkman and Daphne show up at the comic shop to decide their next move. Seth Green, once again to the rescue (!), explains that these are the last published issues by Isaac Mendez (I’m proven wrong, seeing as how it’s entirely possible that Isaac was at least 5 months ahead on issues waiting to be published), but there’s a legend that there is one unpublished issue that was put in the hands of a bike messenger. Find the bike messenger, find your next move.

Brief Pinehearst interlude…Mr. Petrelli and Flint continue to give Mohinder crap about getting on with his research and eventually Mohinder beats the crap out of Flint  with a microscope. Once the eclipse ends and Mohinder’s scales return, he sees that he has to continue their research, but Mr. Petrelli makes a comment to him, “You have to figure out how to control that (more…)