March 30, 2009
Gettin’ up to date on “Heroes,” we last saw Claire confronted by Eric Doyle (puppet master dude that held her and her two moms hostage earlier this season), who claims that she is supposed to help him. Yet again, Rebel is hard at work. Claire and her mother still feel a bit raw about their latest confrontation with him, so despite his efforts to prove that he’s not the same man, he leaves.
Cutting to Parkman, you may recall that Danko drugged him up and left him with a chest full of explosives in front of the Capitol building. When Nathan catches wind of the fact that Parkman is there, he rushes to the scene. Once there, Nathan attempts to calm Parkman down, but Parkman believes that Nathan is responsible for this. Once Nathan manages to gain Parkman’s trust, he pushes him to concentrate on the SWAT team surrounding them to figure out which wire to cut, just as they’re going for the red wire, at the very last second they go for the black wire, and the bomb does not detonate to Danko’s dismay. With that, Nathan knocks Parkman out.
Things are fairly rocky for Nathan and Danko, and they wind up getting into a bit of a pissing match, both revealing that they’re going to try and push each other out. Danko starts digging up dirt on Nathan, attempting to prove his suspicions. He even goes so far as to see Angela in hopes of learning something about Nathan, but she manages to be somewhat evasive. Meanwhile, Nathan has gone over Danko’s head to the president, and is pleased to inform Danko that Danko is out on his ass.
Sylar had an interesting encounter this week…with his father, now suffering from cancer and basically breathing through an oxygen tank. While Sylar was once hell bent on killing him, he now sees how pointless that would be, because he would be putting his father, Samson, out of his misery. Samson shows Sylar that they have the same powers, and sure enough a battle ensues that reveals to Samson that Sylar has a healing ability. Samson’s thirst for the ability takes over, and he pleads with Sylar, saying that he would survive if Samson took the ability, but Sylar decides against it, and storms out leaving Samson to suffer a long and painful death.
As for Claire, ultimately she decides to take the high road and help Doyle, after Doyle totally had her back when she was caught up in a run-in with agents. The thing was, he spared the agent’s life, which won Claire’s trust. She goes to the trouble of creating a false identity and papers for him, and when she sends him on his way asks if he really has changed. He smiled and walked off without a word.
Meanwhile, Hiro and Ando return to the fold, now seeking to protect (more…)
March Madness always seems to throw off the “Survivor” schedule for a few weeks, but here’s the most recent happenings for our castaways in Brazil. Just as Brendan and Sierra sleuthed out the hidden immunity idol at camp, their counter duo in the secret alliance over at Jalapao, Taj and Stephen, also found the hidden immunity idol. For safe keeping, Taj entrusted it to Stephen, who admits to feeling pretty comfortable with it in his pocket as opposed to anyone else’s.
At the Reward Challenge, each tribe member was forced to spin on a platform, getting dizzy, then race across a balance beam to score points. Jalapao is victorious and wins a trip to the Charmin Cafe…yup, toilet paper and fresh toilets. More than that though, they get to dig into some serious food. And even better, letters from home…always a touching addition. Steven is not so lucky though, as when Brendan is sent to Exile he brings Stephen along to give them an opportunity to get to know each other a little better. Unfortunately, Tyson voices his suspicions to Coach about Brendan making ties with the other team, putting a target on Brendan’s back.
At Jalapao, Spencer and Sydney talk, and Sydney mentions her boyfriend (won’t Joe be disappointed). When she presses Spencer about there being any ladies in his life, he sort of subtley brushes it off, but reveals to the camera later that he’s gay and hasn’t said anything because he doesn’t want that to effect his standing in the game. He’s especially nervous about JT’s reaction, which is fairly justified.
Next up, the Immunity Challenge! While two tribe members launch balls, the remaining tribe members must catch them to score points, while also playing defense against the opposing tribe members. Spencer quite literally drops the ball in this challenge, pissing off JT and Joe who both feel that Spencer is just not an asset to the tribe after his awful performance. After all, JT got so caught up in the challenge that he lost a tooth, this is serious stuff. Ultimately, Timbira won, sending Jalapao to tribal council and placing Spencer squarely on the chopping block.
There was a good deal of discussion before tribal council, with JT insisting on cutting out their weakest link, which was currently debatable as to whether it was Spencer or Taj. Stephen felt uncomfortable with this, being that he had forged a secret alliance with Taj, he would have to turn on her if that was the way the majority felt, and as a result, he would still have the hidden immunity idol. Kind of a sweet deal for him actually. Despite all debates, the decision was basically unanimous to send Spencer home, which seemed kind of harsh. It seemed like he was performing well enough up until this last challenge, but hey, somebody had to go I guess. At least it wasn’t Sydney.
March 29, 2009
Gettin’ up to date on the past two episodes of “Lost,” the focus has primarily been dealing with the return of Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, and Sun…and how this could potentially and royally *&$% things up for Sawyer. We last left off with the reunion in the valley between Sawyer, Jack, Hurley, Kate, and Jin, but now Sawyer finds himself in the awkward position of figuring out a way to integrate his old friends into the Dharma Initiative, and having a good cover for where exactly they came from. This could prove difficult. And Sayid getting captured doesn’t help things…
Very briefly, we got to see the actual crash that occurred with Flight 316, and Frank turned out to be a hell of a pilot. This crash was not nearly as ugly as Flight 815, in fact, technically, he did manage to land the plane…roughly…but in one piece at least. Once there, Sun (inexplicably, she is the only one of the Oceanic 6, minus Aaron, that was not warped into the past) sees Ben rushing off into the woods. She follows, and when he confronts her, he tells her he is going to the main island to find his people, and she is more than welcome to join him. Frank follows, and tries to convince Sun otherwise, pleading that his entire freighter was sent to kill this guy and he can’t be trusted. Ultimately, Sun knocks out Ben with an ore, which is what I assume lands him in the makeshift recovery ward that Locke finds him in (like, 4 episodes ago?). Frank and Sun then take a canoe and head for the main island.
Once Sawyer gets over reuniting with some old friends, he rushes back to the barracks to dig up some clothes for them to wear. Apparently a submarine is due in that day, and the only explanation he’ll have to cover up where Jack, Kate, and Hurley came from is by making it look like they’re a group of new arrivals. We also learn that Faraday has apparently left, maybe to join Richard Alpert? Nothing more is said on that. He fills in Juliet, who goes to see Amy, who is usually in charge of the manifest for the submarine (At this point, Amy reveals that they will name the baby Ethan). Juliet tweaks the manifest at the last minute, and probably solved and namaste, Jack, Kate, and Hurley are in. Jack is assigned as a workman (by none other than Pierre Chang/Marvin Candle of Dharma video fame), Kate is assigned as a mechanic, and Hurley is assigned as a chef. Life’s good, and there’s an old fashioned Dharma barbeque to welcome the newbies.
Elsewhere, Jin has gone to see Radzinsky, who watches the surveillance videos of the island. He is determined to find where the plane crashed, and thereby find Sun, but Radzinsky insists that there is no plane that crashed. There was an alert of a hostile in the perimeter, so he and Radzinsky rushed off to find the hostile…who turned out to be Sayid. Unfortunately, with Radzinsky there, Jin could not help Sayid, and had to take him into custody.
Back in the present, Sun and Frank found themselves at the barracks, where they were confronted by Christian. Uh-oh, this never bodes well. Christian brought them to see the others, but it turned out that all he had to show them was a Dharma picture from 1977, where Sun saw all her friends. Sun is officially the only person who can ever justifiably say, “WTF,” because this was one of those moments.
After a hectic day, Jack went to visit Sawyer, and was a little surprised to find (more…)
Packin’ 3 hours of Jack Bauer action into one, hopefully as brief as possible, post. As you probably remember, many weeks ago, President Taylor left the safe room with Juma threatened her daughter, Olivia, with certain death. As a result, Juma now has a bunch of hostages, President Taylor included, in the White House! He tells Taylor that she will issue a statement over the internet apologizing for the United States’ atrocious actions around the world. She does so, and meanwhile Agent Moss is outside arguing with the Vice-President about storming the White House. As for Bill and Jack, they’re seated with the hostages debating their next move. Bill makes it. He rushes at one of Juma’s guards and grabs his firearm, shooting at the ceiling and setting off explosives within the room. A silent commercial break countdown confirms that this was a suicide mission, and Bill, like so many CTU directors before him, has died in the line of duty.
Fortunately, Bill’s death was not in vein, and it cued Agent Moss to go over the Vice-President’s head and storm the White House. During the chaos, Jack chases after Juma and winds up killing him. Juma in custody might have ended the whole ordeal, but hey, there’s still 12 hours of action that needs to play out this season. Despite all of Jack’s heroics, he is once again placed into custody by Moss (what’s that, the third time today?) but continues to plead that Juma had outside intelligence and therefore he needs to question Burnett regarding that outside intelligence. Moss blows him off, but this time Renee goes over Moss’s head and talks to Ethan, President Taylor’s chief of staff, who in turn makes the call to allow Jack to question Burnett. Their logic: Jack doesn’t need to harm Burnett, the threat of Jack’s presence should scare the hell out of Burnett. Moss agrees after Ethan makes the call, but then puts Renee on suspension for insubordination.
Elsewhere, President Taylor and Olivia have a tender moment, and Olivia is back on the staff. Apparently the falling out was due to Olivia playing hardball during the election, leaking negative press about their opponent. Ethan and Olivia are at odds though, namely because Ethan totally disapproved of Olivia’s actions, but Olivia disapproves of how Ethan has let things get so out of hand.
Once at the hospital, Jack is sent in to see Burnett (more…)
March 9, 2009
Basically, this episode rounded out a tightly knit trilogy of reuniting the principle cast, with the Oceanic 6 dropping on the island two weeks ago, last week’s episode revealing what Locke did back on the mainland and the fact that Locke is alive and well back on the island, and this week we find out what happens to the ragtag group Locke left behind. Just what do Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Daniel, and Miles do while waiting for Locke’s return? Join the Dharma Initiative.
After one final bright flash, Sawyer decided to lead everyone back down to the beach, for lack of a better plan.
Quick cut to the future (kind of, it’s the past…basically, when Locke fixed the time shifts, he left his motley crew somehow in the year 1974…so that 3 years everyone else spends off the island, this crew spends on the island, in the 70s…confused by that yet?) and two Dharma Initiative members see surveillance videos of Horace Goodspeed (you remember this guy, helped deliver Ben and recruited Ben and his father, Roger, to the Dharma Initiative) drunk out by the sonic fence. They debate going to LaFleur…and eventually do. Turns out LaFleur is Sawyer, now head of security for the Dharma Initiative, and he and Miles head out to take Horace home. Back at Horace’s house, Sawyer talks to Horace’s wife, Amy, who starts going into labor.
Double back to three years ago, while the group is on the way to the beach, they catch sight of a woman and a man being attacked in a field, and while Daniel insists it doesn’t matter what they do, they can’t stop the inevitable (remember, this guy is pretty damn heartbroken), but Sawyer and Juliet step in and kill the attackers, who happen to be Hostiles, and head back with the woman, who happens to be Amy, to her camp. Her husband, Paul, was killed, but they brought the body back after burying the two Hostiles. At the sonic fence though, she pulls a fast one on them, making it look like she deactivated it, but really she had earplugs in, and the sonic waves knocked them all unconscious.
When Sawyer awoke, he was greeted by Horace. Sawyer fed Horace some bull about how they were shipwrecked while looking for an old slaving ship called the Black Rock, and were looking around the island for the rest of their crew (speaking of which, where the hell are all those other Losties last seen in episode 1?) Horace bought it, and told him that there is a submarine leaving the island in the morning, and they’ll be on it. As for the rest of the crew, Horace assured him that he would keep an eye out for the rest of the crew and send them along if they were found.
Cut back to the future…errr…1977, and that baby is on its way, but as we know, babies don’t do so well in delivering on the island. Well, the babies are okay, but the women not so much. Sawyer went to Juliet, (more…)
March 5, 2009
As for the heroes this week, Peter and Parkman found themselves on Danko’s high priority list, Sylar dug up some answers in an unexpected place, Claire and Mrs. Bennett bonded over liberating a kid with abilities, and Rebel continues to point the heroes in the right direction.
We last left Peter and Parkman at Isaac’s loft, where Parkman had just painted a large explosion in the vicinity of the White House. Peter insists that they bounce because he’s dead certain a team of Danko’s guys is hot on their trail. Parkman insists that they track down Daphne and rescue her. But if Daphne’s in Building 26, then that would be walking right into the lion’s den…which is exactly what they do. Peter takes Parkman’s ability, reasoning that two psychics are better than one, right? Might hurt the getaway a bit, but hey, guess he’s got a point. They get past security and finally reach a room with computers, maybe surveillance, where they start hunting for Daphne. Then they start getting messages from Rebel, one of which is video footage of all the heroes being taken into custody, which is totally not cool and if that footage got out, it could totally kill this whole operation. As for Danko, who starts heading for them, he’s stopped pretty quickly by his own men under Parkman’s mind control. Danko triggers an alarm to disrupt Parkman’s thoughts, giving them a chance to catch Peter and Parkman. Parkman is caught, but Peter manages to somehow slip away…with the video footage.
Claire continues to help Alex, planning to get him set up to leave for Canada. Then her mom finds Alex and demands an explanation for her keeping a boy in her closet. Claire insists that she’s a dirty girl and they’re sleeping together, but Mrs. Bennett doesn’t quite buy that. Eventually, Claire caves and explains that Alex has an ability and is being hunted. Surprisingly, Mrs. Bennett is cool with this, but explains that their house is being staked out, so Claire is going to need her help if she’s serious about helping Alex escape. With that, she uses Lyle’s driver’s license to make Alex a quick fake ID, and Claire is impressed by how cool her straight-laced, non-powered, non-biological mother is. Tender moment.
Meanwhile, Sylar and Luke keep on trucking, and soon enough they make a pit stop at an abandoned and boarded up old Hot Dog place. After ripping down the boards, Sylar and Luke go inside and Sylar gets a few glimpses of his past as a child here. He remembers (more…)
Alright, with two solid episodes of “24″ to blow through, there’s a lot to cover. Long story short, Jack has teamed back up with Tony and they need to find out what the next target is…this will involve torturing that information out of Burnett, Senator Mayer’s chief of staff…who is currently at the White House. Take a wild guess what the next target is. Oh yeah, and Juma, well, with Dubaku out of commission, Juma is currently running this operation personally…on US soil. Yup, this looks bad…well, for the Jack and the other characters…for us, the viewers, this is pretty damn awesome.
Cutting straight to Juma, well he has a guy posing as an orderly on duty at the hospital Dubaku is being held in. Eh, I thought he was dead, but apparently he’s not…well, now he is because Juma had the orderly kill Dubaku off. This is complicated by the fact that Dubaku’s son, little Dubaku, is rolling with Juma, and Juma insists he can never know about this. Renee senses something is fishy and follows this mysterious orderly, back to a boat.
Jack and Tony lay out a plan of attack, deciding that it’s best if they leave Bill out of this because Jack is going to step outside of the law by torturing Burnett for information that will lead them to the next target. They contact Chloe and tell her to delete Burnett’s name from the list with all those damn traitors on it. Basically, I think the goal is to torture Burnett, and then maybe the government would cut him a deal if he divulges the target. Something like that. Well, unfortunately for Chloe, Janis caught onto her games and figured out that a name was deleted, so Moss put Chloe into custody. As for Jack, he blew straight into the White House, armed with a taser, holding Bill briefly hostage to ensure the fact that Bill would not be associated with his actions. Naturally, at this particular moment, Senator Mayer was being briefed on everything Bauer has done to save the country, the argument being that he should be quietly pardoned for prior actions. Well, Jack sort of hurt his case when he found Burnett and went straight to work pulling the same kind of stunt that landed him in a court room to begin with.
With Burnett located, Jack locked the doors and started tasing the crap out of him, pressing him for what the next target is. Bill had to tell President Taylor and Senator Mayer about what Jack was up to, and President Taylor buzzed into the room on the phone to stop Jack from torturing Burnett. Jack’s response? Tasing the damn phone! Just when Jack had the taser at Burnett’s throat, which could potentially paralyze Burnett, (more…)
March 4, 2009
When Timbira returned from tribal council after giving Candace the boot, Erinn tried to reconcile with everyone and break all association she had with Candace. Yeah, that association ain’t gonna benefit her one damn bit. Unfortunately, no one really bought it, she had been tagged, and Coach especially was hellbent on sending Erinn home next. Of course, Erinn wasn’t stupid and decided all she could do was try and outperform everyone at the challenge, and prove that she is a worthwhile member of the tribe to have around. We’ll see how that plays out for her.
At the reward challenge, within each tribe members were divided into pairs that had to collect corn in buckets from large vats…the trick of course, was that they were blindfolded and a tribemember endowed with a powerful voice would need to yell to them and navigate them through. Jalapao arose victorious and had the privilege of sending Brendan back to Exile, who in turn asked Taj to join him. Surprise, surprise.
Back at Jalapao, the tribe enjoyed their recent reward consisting of pillows, blankets, chairs, and other overly luxurious items that they have no business using on a show called “Survivor.” As for Timbira, Coach consulted with his “assistant coach,” Tyson, about taking Erin out the next chance they get. They agree on that, and further agree that they will be able to get Sierra, Debbie, and Brendan to vote along with them. What about Jerry though? The military man who has had virtually no screentime since the new season began? Well, Jerry’s not holding up so well in the wilderness, and he’s a bit under the weather. You always expect these military types to do so well on the show, but with a few exceptions, they usually seem to have the most trouble.
As for Brendan and Taj at Exile (more…)
March 2, 2009
Last time we checked, Locke was dead. He was in that coffin at the end of season 3, but we didn’t know he was in that coffin till the end of season 4, and most recently he was still in that coffin (dead!) en route back to the island courtesy of Jack. He’s dead, right? They killed off this pivotal character with at least a season and a half to go before the season finale. Imagine my surprise when the survivors of Ajira Airlines Flight 316, led by new characters Caesar and Ilana, find a very alive Locke standing in the water. How in the sweet chocolate Christ did this happen?
A flashback will settle this issue and fill in some blanks we’ve been waiting for, since roughly the last episode of season 3. We last saw Locke on the island turning that wheel, and now he suddenly appears in the Tunisian desert with a broken leg, monitored by cameras. A truck pulls up and Locke is taken to a small hospital where his leg is reset, quite painfully, and he passes out. He is awakened by a familiar but unexpected face…Charles Widmore. Insert clutch conversation where Charles Widmore is fascinated that the conversation he had with Locke when he was 17 on the island happened only 4 days ago from Locke’s perspective. Widmore goes onto explain that he was once the leader of the Others, but Ben tricked him and exiled him, forcing him to leave the island, which is why Widmore is trying to get back and understands Locke’s need to get the Oceanic 6 back on the island. He assures Locke he’ll do everything in his power to help Locke complete this mission. He further assures Locke that he is in fact special, and that there is a war coming on the island, and if Locke ain’t there, the wrong side is going to win.
With that, Widmore sets Locke up with the false identity of Jeremy Bentham, and assigns Matthew Abaddon (!!!) to escort Locke everywhere he needs to go, and track down everyone he needs to track down. Gee, this feels familiar, Abadon pushing Locke around in a wheelchair. First stop, is Sayid, working for a non-profit organization in the Dominican Republic. Sayid rejects him on the spot, saying he will not return to the island, then telling him that Ben manipulated him into thinking he was protecting the others for 2 years.
Locke’s next visit was to Walt, where Walt (more…)