What aunt_zelda Thinks: 'Cold Wars'
Ugh. I am sorry, but yesterday I got home from the first rehearsal for Henry V and felt like I wanted to die. Not because of the rehearsal, that was great, and I am SOOOOO psyched to be back in theater, but that horrid illness I got still hasn’t gone away, and yesterday I was coughing up a storm. That said, this WAZT ain’t all that good. I was fighting to breathe semi-normally at the time, but that’s no excuse for my foul temper yesterday evening. Sorry guys. Today I seem to be significantly on the mend *crosses fingers*
For those of you that don’t know, [the stuff in brackets like this is reflective commentary added after the episode.]
Previously, on Heroes: I continue to be bamboozled by the insane hair on the employees on Chuck. My TV is good, but randomly flickers into horror before coming right back. My re-watching of Firefly makes anything Alec Baldwin does on Chuck seem twelve times funnier. Bearded-Guy gets some nookie from Asian-Girl.
Ok ok, Previously on Heroes, for real: Nathan went evil. HRG pulled threats. Mohinder got badass and can run really, really fast. Plane crash! Dead positive female role model! Angry!Matt! Peter is annoyed. There's trouble in the Bennet household. (It made me cry.)
Mohinder and Matt argue like the ex-boyfriends they are. [They do a lot of that this episode. It’s insane. Mohinder has been reduced to a useless badass - I know, I didn’t think they could exist either! - Matt is morphing into the Hulk, and Peter GOT SHIT DONE. Somehow this still managed to be a helluva a good episode. Not nearly as good as last week’s, but still better than the majority of V3.] Then Peter joins in and it's explained why Matt can't just read Bennet's mind, what with the Japanese and wiliness that is our Spy Daddy.
Then they ride out into last week's episode. I am still tempted to yelp 'CLAUDE WHERE R U?!' in a very loud voice as HRG is roofied and dragged out by the Trio. I giggle a bit, because this week it looks more menacing than funny.
Later, HRG's HRGs are on the table. HRG's drugged state makes it easier to get into his mind, and suddenly the scene melts away into ...
Five weeks ago, when the world was colored in gray tones. YAY! [Looking back, I think I disagree with this formatting. In ‘Company Man’ we came to view black-and-white flashbacks as heralds of the best episode of this show … and the precedent set by previous flashbacks means that these flashbacks are recent enough to merit color. Or maybe HRG sees his life as a film noir? Anyhoodle, they looked great, but the magic of ‘Company Man’ wasn’t there. I’m always happy to watch HRG’s story, but this was not ‘Company Man’ nor was it awful.]
HRG spy-met with Angela. He wanted to continue the work of bagging and tagging. Angela thought the Company had a good run, but is over. She gave him a big fat pension and severance check, and a shiny watch. HRG was suspicious.
'Bag and Tag' and 'One of Us, One of Them' are antiquated systems. Angela admitted she was tired, hated having told so many lies, and wants to see if she can piece her family back together. [This should have been my sign that she wasn’t, ya know, serious about going plainclothes, but I’ve been really sick, people, and she looked so sincere! I was stupid, ok? She’s fooled us before, after all!] She urged HRG to go home to Claire.
HRG said 'this' is all he'd ever known. What should he do?
Angela told him to take care of Claire and himself, and left. HRG looked a bit put-out. So, he kinda dug the super-spy thing? *sighs and shakes head*
Matt shakes out of this memory, and says he'll be able to get into the memories they need.
"How far are you willing to push?" Mohinder asks, not liking the potential viciousness in his ex-boyfriend.
"As far, as I need to." Matt grits, gettin' all up in HRG's grill.
After the commercial break, a tuxedo-clad Nathan (I’ll pause for you fangirls to collect yourselves) strides into Building 26, past the title-card, which is on a wall.
Hunter Devlin admits to spying on HRG and Nathan. He’s creepeh. But you already knew that, especially if you watched Oz. Nathan looks kinda unsettled. (He didn’t watch Oz.)
Matt and Mohinder argue, while Peter mediates. Eventually Matt gets into another flashback. We see scenes from Company Man ... then it's four weeks ago, still gray-tinted.
HRG knows the way to a woman's heart, by asking his wife a question on the crossword puzzle.
She mentions that they're having dinner with people from Lyle's PTA. She goes upstairs to take a shower ... and then Nathan's at the door! If this were a sitcom, the Applause would have started right there.
Nathan hilariously knows where their daughter is. "Secret Service thing."
(My Lost-buddy poked her head in and was confuzzled by Nathan, asking "Isn't he the President?" *shakes head* Poor Lost-buddy.)
Nathan is here to warn HRG that some things are gonna change, but assures him that Claire will be safe. HRG weedles out the plan and is angry. Nathan actually insults Primatech. (Boo!) You just know that when HRG pulls his double-tripple-cross, he’s gonna attack Nathan whilst yelling “… and this is for saying Primatech didn’t get the job done!”
"You know you're gonna be seen as a villain?" HRG warns, telling Nathan that Claire will never look at him the same way again, and that everyone will blame Nathan. Nathan doesn’t seem to fully comprehend how much people are going to despise him. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. What happened to the man who flew his brother up into the sky to stick it to their mother and save NYC?
Nathan wants to know how HRG tracked 'these people' for 20 years.
HRG brings him into a warehouse full of boxes and some guns. Nathan says he’s with the Government now, "We have loads of weapons … and stuff." Hee.
HRG just wants Nathan to understand the magnitude of revealing a secret the Company spent more than 30 years trying to cover up. Ooooo, burn!
Matt is VERY angry. He and Mohinder fight some more. Peter stupidly leaves them all in the room and heads for the storage locker with the combination Matt wrote down. "Try not to kill each other." he snaps, like a mom leaving her kids home alone. For some reason, the scene reminds me of Reservoir Dogs more than anything. When Peter gets back, Matt will be dead in a pool of his own blood, HRG will be missing an ear, and Mohinder will be insisting that Matt wanted to take the diamonds for himself.
Peter misses a camera in an air vent as he's rifling through shelves. Devlin doesn't miss him.
Inside Evil Trackers of Mutants Are Us, Devlin gets Nathan in. "I want Peter caught." Nathan says, and I'm sorry girls, but he doesn't sound slashy when he says it. Devlin hilariously says on his radio to his boys "Phasers on stun."
Peter tosses a grenade and flies away. I love how he’s utilizing the power of sonic flight waaaaay better than anyone else after having it (exclusively, mind you) for like, three days as opposed to months (like Nathan) or even years (like West.) I love the running-into-the-sky thing
HRG tries to sow dissention in the ranks. It works. At this point I suspected that Matt diving into HRG’s mind was opening him up for psychic influence, and HRG was purposely making him angry and difficult. I guess he wasn’t, but wouldn’t it have been cool if he was?
Back in the past, HRG and Devlin really don't like each other. Devlin doesn't want the 'one of us, one of them' thing, he wants a 'twelve of us, none of them' plan. Devlin is a specist. He also points out the downside to 'one of us, one of them' i.e. betrayals and lack of trust. HRG is a little mad that he isn't running the show as promised, but Nathan apologizes-without-really-apologizing, as politicians are wont to do. I’d like to think that my President (Obama) would never stand for this kind of cloak-and-dagger Senator Kelly BS, but you never really know until said President is confronted with dangerous mutants. I’d like to think Obama would find them cool, kinda like HRG did in ‘Company Man’ but who knows?
Then HRG gets into a cab and congratulates Mohinder on having his old job back.
"How else would I randomly bump into old acquaintances?" Mohinder asks, slightly exasperated.
"I realize we haven't always played nice with each other." HRG says, mindful, as always, of the dub-con slashers, but he says he needs Mohinder’s help. He talks about ‘a government program’ that’s gonna blow up in said government’s faces. [Was it Angela who wanted Mohinder on the team or Noah? Or do they just want Mohinder not with the government? We the viewers have seen one possible future where Mohinder was with the government, and though everyone in it was hot, that future at large wasn’t all that great.]
"I just saw you and him in a cab." Matt says, catering to the small-but-determined group of Noahinder fangirls.
Matt is getting unreasonably angry as this episode goes on. He and Mohinder slam each other into mirrors, but Mohinder has, ya know, superstrength and pins his ex-boyfriend down. Mohinder speaks sense, and Matt might be seeing it. Mohinder didn’t believe HRG and thought he was just messing with his mind. "If I had done otherwise, I would be the one tied up in that chair!" Mohinder yells ... and HRG hath escapé!
After the commercial break, Matt and Mohinder run around to tense drumbeats. HRG - glasses recovered - snaps an antennae and gets into a car with it in like, two seconds - how badass IS THAT girls?! - and starts preparing to hotwire it. Peter smashes into his windsheild. No, not like that … the days of Peter-is-a-Ditz seem to be, mercifully, over and done with. Hello Future!Peter? Bring Future!Hiro into being and we’ll have tea!
Time to break out the duct-tape … mwah.
Mohinder's blarg-blah-blah-coulda-warned-us-thingie comes out, and Peter doesn't really care (right now.) I can’t blame him. What did Mohinder do wrong? Craziness has erupted in the heroes’ lives pretty infrequently. Either everyone wouldn’t believe him, then it would happen anyway and they’d be too focused on keeping ahead to argue, or nothing would happen and people would hate Mohinder, and too many people have that mindset right now.
Matt smashes into HRG’s mind …
And in Flashback land, HRG tries to seduce Devlin. Ok, not really, but it's more fun to imagine that he is.
Devlin breaks down HRG's character in like, two seconds. He says HRG ‘dances’ between Company Man and Family man. "And I'm not much for dancing." Devlin, sir, you make a grave mistake. I myself cannot think ill of a man who can dance, so you just lost a powerful ally in this fandom.
Devlin still stubbornly refuses to think of the heroes as human. *shakes head*
HRG thinks the job is about understanding the heroes' humanity, not their powers. “But to do that ... you gotta be human.” he tells Devlin. Oooooo, burn!
Dragged out of HRG's mind by Mohinder, Matt is now incredibly groggy. Still, he sends Peter flying with a gun to Devlin's house. HRG's pleas that they're "unraveling things" that they "don't understand" go unheeded.
The van full of the ninja Mutant-haters pulls up to the motel parking lot. Rut-row! Excited as I am to see Mohinder kick more ass, I don't think he's up taking all of them down. And Matt certainly isn't.
Peter stupidly doesn't shoot Devlin, he just stands there and talks. Once again, I am struck with the rather bloodthirsty urge to have people on TV be more ‘shoot first, monologue later’ about their assassination attempts. Not because I want characters dead, but because I believe if you go to kill someone you should either do it right off, not show up if you lack the nerve, or enact a slash fic.
Nathan is getting feed of the scene at Devlin’s house. [Devlin didn’t know he had cameras in his house. HA HA! Now everyone at the office will know that he secretly re-watches Oz on Friday nights instead of picking up blond chicks like he tells everyone at the water cooler!]
"You're the good brother. The passionate one. You want me dead, huh?" he leans forward, pressing his forehead to the gun barrel. (Ooooooo … that was low … *tries to resist my urge to jump on the bandwagon of any character who incites gunporn*)
Nathan arrives.
Peter actually shoots Devlin in the arm to prove to Nathan how serious he is now. Good boy! You’re learning! *pats him on the head*
Nathan points out that if Peter kills Devlin, the government will want all the heroes dead. He tells Peter that if he kills Devlin, the Matthinder pairing will die. Peter flees eventually, but has the decency to look conflicted about it.
"I just saved your life, you're welcome!" Nathan yells, annoyed, as we are, with Hunter Devlin.
The he-men-Mutant-Haters-Club pile out of the van and try to act menacing and pretend they aren't a final jab at the Bush Administration.
HRG tells Matt that Daphne is alive, just go in his head! Mohinder promises to hold off the bad guys for his boyfriend.
DAPHNE IS ALIVE YOU GUYS I LOVE THIS SHOW WOOHOO!
Then Mohinder starts throwing guys into the air. Yay! Did I mention I love this show? He draws their fire and, hopefully, works through his stupid ‘I should have warned them’ angst. Matt is also captured. Peter (I think, you never know with this show) grabs Matt and zooms away, leaving a sonic boom mark in the sky. HRG looks either happy, or his customary awe of superpowers ... but not angry, methinks.
Now Mohinder's chained to a chair. [I’m not angry that Peter didn’t save him. He could only grab one person at a time, and it was probably hard enough to do that without taking Matt’s power and falling out of the sky like Oceanic A15, and it provides for, hopefully, shots of shirtless!Mohinder, Mohinder in chains, and Mohinder-is-rescued-by-Sylar situations.] It looks a little more high-tech than Tracey's bonds last week. The light is white, and the set is clearly a remake of a Company cell.
Mohinder gets drenched with water. Nathan makes an evil speech again. He’s getting quite good at those, and seems to have dutifully read the Evil Overlord’s List, because most of his speeches have been made when his enemies are immobilized.
Mohinder laughs that Nathan's plan is to lock them all up for a long time. You’ve got to admit, it does sound pretty lame.
Nathan shows off footage of Daphne, telling Mohinder that if he doesn't help, the government will kill them all. Then he leaves. Oh yes, he’s totally taking the Evil Overlord thing to heart.
Later, walking along a street at night, Devlin tells HRG that protocol after someone's taken prisoner is 'shore leave.' He needs to stop speaking geek, or I will kill him. I don't care if he's a fictional character or not, dude's goin' down if he keeps trying so hard to ingratiate himself to us.
HRG is SOOOOOOOO much taller than Devlin. Hee hee hee. That's the real issue here, mark my words.
Devlin wants to get rid of Nathan. At least, that's what I think is going on. HRG agrees and says he's on board and all, but then he goes over to sit on a bench with Angela. HRG reports that he thinks Devlin trusts him. Angela says that's stupid, Devlin will "continue to test" him.
Angela says that tough choices are on the way to prove his loyalty to the other side.
"You know me, I've always been comfortable with morally gray." HRG says.
Angela smiles, HRG leaves, and she then picks up the box with the watch.
... I don't get it, but I can't wait to.
And then they totally ruin the ending by showing us Peter and Matt hiding in Isaac’s old loft, Matt having just drawing a painting of himself with a suicide-bomber vest on. He’s horrified, and Peter tries to calm him down, saying he’s not a killer … and then Matt points out that they’re standing on a new Floorpocalypse (TM to someone else, not me!) of the capitol blowing up. So … Jericho crossover time, y/y?
I’m ashamed to admit that the moment I saw it, I yelled ‘NO! Not another one!’ Don’t they have, you know, enough going on without the added bonus of D.C. going boom? Focusing on hunted people and all the interpretations of that is perfectly acceptable! Don’t take more than you can handle, PLEASE! *crosses fingers and does dances to appease the gods*
So, all in all ... good episode. Not as amazing as last week, but we got a lot of action, some luverly flashbacks, and DAPHNE IS ALIVE. Also, Mohinder in chains, and kinda wet for no apparent reason. Did I mention Daphne is alive?!
Next Week, on Heroes: Devlin is going rouge, aiming to kill (with a sniper rifle) Claire, Alex, and Sylar. Good luck with that last one, buddy. Angela tells us that the game has changed, and someone needs to be ready. Also, Alex appears to kiss Claire. NOOOOOOO!