I can be cruel, I don't know why
Only one more day to sign up for Yuletide! Join us! (One of us! One of us!)
(My God, I'm totally requesting Freaks next year.)
All of my fandom requests have a least one offer, even Gundam 0083, and just when I was beginning to think I was the only person on the internet who'd seen that anime. And I'm vastly amused that the Human Target requests have doubled (granted, that means it's up to six now) since the premiere last night. The awesomeness of Guerrero compels you!
Speaking of, let's talk about that premiere, shall we?
Yes, there was the undeniable whiff of New-Showrunner-itis --- it actually felt like a reboot of the pilot in a lot of ways, right down to introducing Guerrero by showing him right in the middle of his life of crime. The exposition in the dialogue was especially clumsy in the way that pilot exposition is always clumsy. The conversation where Chance and Ilsa talk about her husband was practically at "Firstname Lastname? The billionaire industrialist?" levels.
It's virtually impossible to introduce two new characters in an ongoing story, especially on a show with such a tiny cast, and it showed in places. They pulled out every stock trick they could to introduce Ames and Ilsa (on a side note, could is it even possible that they named her "Pucci" as an intentional Simpsons reference? And before you say no, remember they also gratuitiously name-dropped "Fat Tony.") It only worked at all because Human Target isn't really a takes-itself-seriously kind of show, and Ames especially was helped by having lots and lots of screen time with Guerrero. Ames is actually the type of character I've been hoping they would bring in; they could use a woman on the team, even if just to cover those situations were Chance can't solve problems by charming them or shooting them. And as much as I liked Layla (Nite-Owl! *giggle*), Guerrero's already a hacker. What they don't have is a dedicated thief. I think it rounds them out nicely.
That she is just pants-wettingly terrified of Guerrero is just the icing on the cake.:) The look on her face when she blurted out, "You're Guerrero?" may have been the highlight of the episode. The blurb for the next episode makes it sound like she's going to try to get Guerrero to be her Yoda, which should both be hilarious and actually makes a good bit of sense: if you're a criminal and wind up in the orbit of someone so good at crime that other career criminals cry for their mothers just at the sound of his name, it only follows that you'd want to take notes. And from a writing standpoint, it might be a genius way of dragging out some of Guerrero's backstory. We've had three really illuminating moments for Guerrero: Baptiste taunting him about "the little one," his almost having a panic attack about going to jail, and of course the flashback. All three times he was either pushed out of his comfort zone or was a flashback, and since they can't do everything in flashback, they're going to have to shove him out of that comfort zone. Having to deal with over-enthusiastic thief girl might do that. And if Ames goes intentionally snooping around to find out things about him, all the better; we're never going to get dirt from Chance, and Winston doesn't know Guerrero well enough to have any dirt.
The interwebs are already speculating that she's going to be a love interest for him, which I really hope isn't what's happening; putting aside that she's young enough to be his kid were the writers so inclined, I'm much more interested in whether he already has a love interest. That little one didn't pop out of the ground after all; some woman out there was crazy enough to have a kid with our favorite psychopath. She's the one I want to know about.
On to Ilsa: honestly, I'm kind of hoping she's a mole. Fronting for the bad guys would explain how she was able to track Chance down in the first place, and it would add some oomph to the almost-inevitable romance she'll have with Chance just before Katherine resurfaces. They've already tried the stick method of getting the book, and all they got for their troubles was Guerrero shooting their goons to kingdom come. Maybe they're trying the honeypot instead.
Random Things I liked:
I love that Guerrero dropped everything (literally) when Chance called, and that the writers remembered his love of trunk transport.
That punch. I laughed so hard and felt so guilty.
That interrogation scene. That was one of the best scenes the show's ever done; JEH is so good at making him terrifying without even raising his voice. Small guy, soft spoken, then out comes the box of hooks and he's asking you if you'd rather have your fingernails torn off or get kneecapped because, hey, it's your body. You should get to pick. Brrr. And am I right that this is first time we've seen the others be party to his dark side? I'm wondering just how far Winston would have let that go; I know he's had a rough go of it and they were on a tight schedule, but I've never thought he was capable of standing by while Guerrero actually tortured someone. Of course, it didn't come to that and Winston may have been banking on Guerrero being able to scare her into talking without putting any new bloodstains on the floor.
That said, Guerrero throwing up his hands in frustration when it looked like he wasn't going to get to torture Ames was hilarious.
Speaking of Guerrero and Winston, was it my imagination or were they getting along much better? Winston all but called Guerrero part of the team when last season he acted like his fondest wish was to see Chance lose his number.
Sigh. My guys.
(My God, I'm totally requesting Freaks next year.)
All of my fandom requests have a least one offer, even Gundam 0083, and just when I was beginning to think I was the only person on the internet who'd seen that anime. And I'm vastly amused that the Human Target requests have doubled (granted, that means it's up to six now) since the premiere last night. The awesomeness of Guerrero compels you!
Speaking of, let's talk about that premiere, shall we?
Yes, there was the undeniable whiff of New-Showrunner-itis --- it actually felt like a reboot of the pilot in a lot of ways, right down to introducing Guerrero by showing him right in the middle of his life of crime. The exposition in the dialogue was especially clumsy in the way that pilot exposition is always clumsy. The conversation where Chance and Ilsa talk about her husband was practically at "Firstname Lastname? The billionaire industrialist?" levels.
It's virtually impossible to introduce two new characters in an ongoing story, especially on a show with such a tiny cast, and it showed in places. They pulled out every stock trick they could to introduce Ames and Ilsa (on a side note, could is it even possible that they named her "Pucci" as an intentional Simpsons reference? And before you say no, remember they also gratuitiously name-dropped "Fat Tony.") It only worked at all because Human Target isn't really a takes-itself-seriously kind of show, and Ames especially was helped by having lots and lots of screen time with Guerrero. Ames is actually the type of character I've been hoping they would bring in; they could use a woman on the team, even if just to cover those situations were Chance can't solve problems by charming them or shooting them. And as much as I liked Layla (Nite-Owl! *giggle*), Guerrero's already a hacker. What they don't have is a dedicated thief. I think it rounds them out nicely.
That she is just pants-wettingly terrified of Guerrero is just the icing on the cake.:) The look on her face when she blurted out, "You're Guerrero?" may have been the highlight of the episode. The blurb for the next episode makes it sound like she's going to try to get Guerrero to be her Yoda, which should both be hilarious and actually makes a good bit of sense: if you're a criminal and wind up in the orbit of someone so good at crime that other career criminals cry for their mothers just at the sound of his name, it only follows that you'd want to take notes. And from a writing standpoint, it might be a genius way of dragging out some of Guerrero's backstory. We've had three really illuminating moments for Guerrero: Baptiste taunting him about "the little one," his almost having a panic attack about going to jail, and of course the flashback. All three times he was either pushed out of his comfort zone or was a flashback, and since they can't do everything in flashback, they're going to have to shove him out of that comfort zone. Having to deal with over-enthusiastic thief girl might do that. And if Ames goes intentionally snooping around to find out things about him, all the better; we're never going to get dirt from Chance, and Winston doesn't know Guerrero well enough to have any dirt.
The interwebs are already speculating that she's going to be a love interest for him, which I really hope isn't what's happening; putting aside that she's young enough to be his kid were the writers so inclined, I'm much more interested in whether he already has a love interest. That little one didn't pop out of the ground after all; some woman out there was crazy enough to have a kid with our favorite psychopath. She's the one I want to know about.
On to Ilsa: honestly, I'm kind of hoping she's a mole. Fronting for the bad guys would explain how she was able to track Chance down in the first place, and it would add some oomph to the almost-inevitable romance she'll have with Chance just before Katherine resurfaces. They've already tried the stick method of getting the book, and all they got for their troubles was Guerrero shooting their goons to kingdom come. Maybe they're trying the honeypot instead.
Random Things I liked:
I love that Guerrero dropped everything (literally) when Chance called, and that the writers remembered his love of trunk transport.
That punch. I laughed so hard and felt so guilty.
That interrogation scene. That was one of the best scenes the show's ever done; JEH is so good at making him terrifying without even raising his voice. Small guy, soft spoken, then out comes the box of hooks and he's asking you if you'd rather have your fingernails torn off or get kneecapped because, hey, it's your body. You should get to pick. Brrr. And am I right that this is first time we've seen the others be party to his dark side? I'm wondering just how far Winston would have let that go; I know he's had a rough go of it and they were on a tight schedule, but I've never thought he was capable of standing by while Guerrero actually tortured someone. Of course, it didn't come to that and Winston may have been banking on Guerrero being able to scare her into talking without putting any new bloodstains on the floor.
That said, Guerrero throwing up his hands in frustration when it looked like he wasn't going to get to torture Ames was hilarious.
Speaking of Guerrero and Winston, was it my imagination or were they getting along much better? Winston all but called Guerrero part of the team when last season he acted like his fondest wish was to see Chance lose his number.
Sigh. My guys.