Heroes (TV series)/Recap/S02/E03 Kindred
Episode: Season Two, Episode Three
Title:"Kindred" Or "How I learned to stop bitching and love the boy"
Previous: Lizards
Next: The Kindness Of Strangers
Recapper: Seth
We open as always on a view of space, but there is no voice-over! Mohinder is not talking about the poetry of evolution!
Shock! Awe!
Previously:
Gold Bob is seducing Mohinder into the company -- but no pointless voice-over about "organisms consuming others to survive" -- music to my ears. We see the paintings again, supposedly the only ones Isaac ever made that did not come true. We see the bleedy eye twins emoting again. We see Claire doing ikky toe removal while stalker West looks on, and finally, a far too clothed Peter is being coerced into dealings with the dum dum dum Irish Criminal Family!!!
Judging by how long it took to recap the "Previously, on Heroes..." section, this will take a while.
The episode proper starts with Peter in "Cork, Ireland". O'Rikky touches Peter's identity box in an inappropriate manner, showing off his Thespian training -- making this simple extortion into something dramatic enough for the Bard. He is making Peter an offer he can't refuse as ethnic henchman pokes fun at the fact that Peter is American and asshole henchman plots to betray the group. Peter channelling Matt's ability to be an idiot questions him straight out with it and receives a smackdown from the whole ICF -- see we have the secret handshake, the cool gang tattoo and accents. What do you have "Peter" so you look good topless what use is that to us?
Addendum to the evil overlord list: "should I ever encounter an amnesiac with amazing powers, who chooses not to kill me outright when I hide his identity from him. I will have the good sense to listen to him when he warns me of my trusted lieutenant's treachery and investigate it immediately"
And off we go to scenic Mehico where bleedy eye twins are once again triggering my "scarlet witch/quicksilver" Far too close siblings sense. Wonder boy is about to step on the slippery slope by stealing a car but he is saved at the last second by an observant man of the law. A man set in his ways to stop crime and make the world a safer place. A real hero here, he shall be known as Hero Cop for being the only person in this season so far to actually try and fight crime.
Rather than give in, bleedy eye twins run, as we are so accustomed to see them doing and as wonder boy gets caught and they are separated again.
Card City, Gothyard: Tech Lad and Cloberella appear and I have to say I missed those guys. And I'm so glad that Micah is off centre so that he doesn't block our view of them. Mother and son discuss their impending exodus, and manage to do this somehow without making eye contact once until daddy dearest comes up and requires some emotion. Also why does his grave say Hero? All he did was kill a rich white guy; this show has the loosest definition of that word ever.
Cut to a CG beach, Camille has changed from Candice into a much less hot variation "Michelle". Michelle reveals that the company saved Sylar! What a shocking twist. Sylar (Hereafter referred to as "Creepy Watch Guy") kindly asks her to stop with the illusions and inform him upfront of his current situation obligingly the scene shifts to a dingy jungle hut. Creepy Watch Guy clearly grateful that his life has been saved and he is being taken care of releases a scream of joy. Glad to see he is a reformed man.
The eclipse of minor significance -- And now we take a break to ask, why the hell they didn't just kill him? They have prior foreshadowing of a bigger bad that molly is oh so scared of and an entire company founded by supers. Keeping Creepy Watch Guy around makes no sense to me.
California, The glasses cave: Claire is reading Activating Evoloution as Noah comes in being the coolest dad ever, just so we can feel bad about Claire keeping secrets. Claire asks another one of her hypothetical questions that are never actually hypothetical and then we cut to her making the lamest excuse ever to North.
This show doesn't use many time lapse cuts like that, it is sort of jarring when they do.
Claire has made an immediate mistake, bringing up the toe first thing just confirms everything. See rather than try to cover for the toe thing, I would blast into him for the stalking. And say anything he said about what may or may not have happened with the toe is just distracting from Ewww you were standing at my window at night. Which she then does ask him… but far too late for my liking! He also makes a lame excuse but makes up for it by being the first person on screen to point out how much Claire sucks at this making stuff up gig. See Claire, shifting the topic that's how you make people believe your crap. Finally their witty banter (In the loosest sense of the phrase ever typed) ends with the lamest finisher ever “Don't Paint you're nails on the wayâ€\x9D? what is that. I would grade this exchange as a D+ some good attempts but let down by constant mistakes.
I will from this point on grade North on Wit, Creepiness, Humour and Badassery.
New York, the apartment of dankitude: Hmm Mind Reader Cop, Matt Mindman, Thought Eavesdropper… I know Deputy Dog! Dep Dog is watching Molly sleep in a genuinely non creepy way, this scene is directed brilliantly, it's hard to make these scenes not look creepy, I commend you Paul Edwards.
Dog hears a noise in the kitchen and gets out the gun that he keeps in his little girls room, he slowly begins to stalk the weird noise. Dep Dog does not consider Mind Reading to see who it is, no he stalks. But thanks to this we can get the not at all gay back and forth between a stay at home mom and her jet setting husband who their child prefers. Seriously, replace spying with partying and make Dog a woman in body as well as mind and that is this exchange. Both Dog ad Xavier channel their inner baddasses for a moment and that "tense" scene is broken by Molly (Hereafter GPS Loli) charging in the room to greet her second daddy. While Dog gives him a not at all jealous look.
The bridge of the starship Enterprise: Ando is making good use of his office hours when his new boss comes in to remind him that his life is still crap, thankfully he has the sword to procrastinate with instead. But what is this, despite spending years in the care of Linderman (Hereafter: Dead!) a man who knew its worth and made replicas, there are as of now undiscovered messages from Hiro! I am willing to handwave this inconsistency because it means we get to see our favourite shaky faced Asian man again.
Cut to the past: A voiceover, but a much more welcome one, as Hiro recounts his tale of meeting his hero in an overly Epic™ manner, recapping the last two episodes with his own rose tinted glasses. Kensei has a minor freak out about the whole ‘not dead' thing and runs the hell away from Hiro.
Irish Pub: Peter proving his topless skillz can help the ICF tries his hand at Calling Your Attacks before quickly discovering that ain't how it works. Never mind, O'Hotty is there to comfort him as Peter proves even without his memory he is still a bit of a whiny dweeb, just a bit.
This exchange with O'Hotty removes any lingering doubt that she wouldn't jump him and make sweet love by the fire at a moments notice, thus cementing her position at the bottom of the Sorting Algorithm of Deadness, all O'Hotty fans had better hope that she develops a power or she will be dead in two episodes tops.
Sunny Mexico: Wonder boy is being dragged into a cell by Hero Cop and is soon greeted by "American guy who so has powers" or "Deus Ex Machina" as he will now be known.
Bayside High: North totally calls Claire a lizard girl in front of everyone and she storms off in the middle of class. Way to not attract attention Claire, now the whole class thinks your "studying" with the class weirdo. This scene gives North plus 2 points in creepiness, plus 3 in wit and humour and zero in badassery. Badassery is by the way worth fifty times the amount of the others combined as a badass can be forgiven of just about anything.
Bridge: Ando is reading more of Hiro's voice over and we transition to Hiro and Ancient Japanese Hotty talking about hercule, I mean Kensei. Gosh he is so great. Speak of the devil, he appears, cutting himself in an emo manner and coming to logical conclusions namely being immortal is going to "make [him] richer than the pope". And I commend him, that is the smartest thing anyone has said all episode.
But Hiro can not have that, Kensei will be a hero if he has to drag him kicking and screaming! Which he does, teleporting him down hill from a small army of pissed samurai and leaving him there to go fetch their sacred relic. Tough love Kensei, tough shaky faced Asian love.
Unfortunately rather than watch what promised to be an awesome smackdown that bards will sing about for centuries we cut to Bayside.
Claire has a brief meltdown because North is being a jerk, but all is redeemed in a PG Slap Slap Kiss moment when he calmly says "Claire, Shut up" and lifts her off the ground in a manner known only to him and superman. Plus one half level in badass, you are still to girly to gain a full level North my friend but it's mostly the hair. I suppose with Peter's haircut they needed someone new a with gender defying hair.
The back alleys of Ireland: The job is going down, peter is playing his role pretty well. But I am left wondering, if they didn't know about his powers why did they need him for this? Ethnic henchman could have done just as well. That is of course until armed guards turn up and he telekinetically slams a van in their path. Peter needs no further levels in badass after the Isaac showdown last season but this was awesome.
The Heroine Loft: Doc X is given Isaac's old loft/lab (the lab part is new AFAIK) and told that the company will be watching him, saying they need him but don't trust him at all. Xavier goes "Ohh Shi..." as we cut.
A national park where the inhabitants are convinced they are in the past: AJ'Hotty and Hiro are discussing Kensei again, rather than do the sensible thing Hiro again bigs up his hero despite so being in lurve with AJ'Hotty. Kensei arrives on the scene, obviously after just witnessing a battle so awesome as to make 300 tame and holds up the MacGuffin, ready to fall into the arms of the woman he did not earn in the slightest. Hiro is clearly sad that he won't get the girl but at least Kensei is actually starting to shape up. Also I need a nickname for Kensei, how about -- "Clearly American guy playing a British Samurai"? Or Weaboo for short?
New Orleans (I will refrain from flood jokes, know that I was thinking about it): Forge and Cloberella are parting ways, Forge is staying with his grandmother -- who holy shit by the way is Uhura! All sets involving her are now "the captains' quarters", since the bridge is taken by Sulu's company and in my opinion it was clearly where Uhura went when the camera wasn't rolling.
Costa Del MURDERING MURDERERS WHO MURDER AND STEAL CARS: Wonder girl is looking sneaky up against a wall, clearly up to no good. She walks calmly into the police station and totally declares that she is a murderer and proceeds to Intentionally Use Her Powers To Kill Policemen!, poor hero cop is lying on the ground all bleedy eyed. Yes I know that they do the whole "Wonder twins power unite" bit and they come back but still.
From this point on I will consider the bleedy eye twins villains until I see them do something vaguely heroic aside from run and murder people, seriously. Deus Ex Machina gets them to free him (No mention of his crime) and reveals that he has a car. Claire's stolen car! This from now on will be known as the "Product Placement of plot detriment", or the Batmobile, whichever one that I can be bothered to type out.
A very Irish pub: The ICF are patting themselves on the back for a robbery well done when Asshole Henchman pulls a gun on them. Peter again channelling Dog calls out "I was right" to which he gets a cookie and two bullets to the chest. Next time shut the hell up and let your captors kill each other. All is not lost however, pulling his best Jesus impression Peter stands up unharmed (And half shirtless) and force pushes Asshole Henchman into the wall, giving him a Darth Vader neck massage at the same time.
Thankfully O'Hotty pulls him back from the brink before killing O'Asshole (Traitors don't deserve the title henchman) because armed robbery is one thing, killing someone is a whole other barrel of kelp. Plus one badass, in case you weren't keeping track that makes Peter second place in badass to Noah, who still rocks for the finger thing he did to his boss. No not like that, you have a dirty mind.
An upturned log: Hiro is finishing his messages to Ando as Weaboo pleads with him not to leave; he needs his bad ass guidance to keep him on the straight and narrow. Hiro stands back and says in a cool manner "You don't need me anymore, I must go before breaking history even more" or something like that. But one further look at AJ'Hotty and he folds, proving that yes, he is a man and he will get laid before going home.
The shack of psychotude: Creepy Watch Guy is trying to use his powers, but alas that power sucking out sound and flashes of people he killed at the end of last season appears to have actually removed all his powers. For now anyway... What does he do with this information? He eats Camille's brains and tries with her powers. Good going dumbass now you are alone in the middle of a jungle and even your amazing power to fix watches is gone. But let us not pass this scene without pointing out the awesome display of shape shifter prowess on Camille's part. After all that he still chose to eat her brains, for shame Creepy Watch Guy, for shame.
O'Pub: Peter is officially part of the ICF! They give him his identity box (Yet again showing off that dramatic flair, O'Rikky is wasted in this small part) and the club tattoo.
Peter emotes over the box for a while before deciding he would rather shag O'Hotty, here here Peter; given basically the same choice as Sylar he chooses the manly option. But in an odd display of his healing powers the club logo, freshly inked on his arm morphs into the S symbol before disappearing completely, how forshadowy.
Make Out Beach: Claire and North are at a beautifully CG looking beach, geeking out over how cool powers are (Making them the only ones aside from Hiro to acknowledge this). Both kick out some cool one liners before they end up in a make out session. But dum dum dum drama, North has the needle mark, he was bagged and tagged by the company and has it in for HRG -- shi... Claire you sure can pick them. This exchange removes 1 point of creepiness, no more badassery I'm afraid but he gets some comedy and wit points. Overall I'm giving him a C+, the plus is for making out with Hayden Panettiere.
Speaking of Noah, at the Heroine Loft/Genetics lab Doc X is talking to him on the phone. The ever wary company has decided to leave some of Isaac's paintings there for him to find, and poor papa Bennet - this one shows your end, what do you want to bet that North is the gun holder?
In other news Cloberella has the Super Plague and is getting in bed with the company to cure herself. So that's going to be interesting. I hope we get to see more of ikkiN this series.
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