meta/liveblog: Episode 3.20: "Cold Snap"
Oh my goodness yes, the return of Bryan Fuller. My prayers answered. Thank you, forces of chaos, good or ill, for bringing about my will. (oooh that sounds positively satanic, doesn't it? It feels that way. I wouldn't have voluntarily traded Pushing Daisies so that this day could come, but on the other hand, there's a song of joy in my heart. Ironically it's "Hopelessly Devoted to You" as sung by Kristin Chenoweth, but whaddya gonna do?) And he brought Swoosie Kurtz along with him. I think it should be the goal of Heroes to have every actor from Pushing Daisies on here before the end.
Written by Bryan Fuller; directed by Greg Yaitanes. What the fuck else do you need to know? IT'S GOOD! And also intermittently extremely stupid. But purty to look at and fun to watch, without a doubt.
Nathan gets the "previously." God, I love his voice.
Danko washes his face and shaves (and I can already taste the Bryan Fuller!) but is interrupted by an alarm. His security system informs him, over and over again, "Front door open," and he grabs his gun to go check it out. Handing in the windowsill is Eric Doyle, all strung up like a puppet. He's got a note on him that says "My gift to you" and I swear to God, Bryan Fuller must have marched back into the writer's room and said "Its my fucking show now, bitches. Do it my way from now on; you still won't get ratings, but it'll be a show like no other, one to be remembered and lauded. A cult show. Just make a real cult show and you'll be fed for the rest of your lives. Has George Takei taught you nothing?"
Pouring rain. HRG gets into a car with Angela. He's got shaving cuts stopped with little squares of toilet paper on his face (BRYAN, CALM DOWN! We're doing what you say!). He tells her this isn't safe, but she needs to establish a few things. Angela knows Nathan is an endlessly forgiving sap, but she's afraid that Peter will never forgive her, and tells HRG that he's her only hope. She tells him to bring Rebel to Danko as a parting gift, to throw him off the scent of, well, her mutant ass. She also gives him her umbrella, and he tells her not to go home. It's backscratching time on Heroes.
In Building 26, Mohinder follows Danko into the room (the door hilariously marked "Human Resources") where all the captured specials are laid out with drug tubes up their noses. Daphne's there, in bad shape. Danko tells Mo that Nathan flew away... and then one of his goons tasers Mo in his hunky, hunky chest and puts him down. Danko smirks triumphantly, "And let's see if we can make up a bed for Miss Strauss." (Who is currently still in sexy red-lit bondage, breathing out cold-steam to dissolve the episode's title chyron...)
NICE. Welcome back, Bryan. You kick ass.
HRG comes in to the Specials' Naptime Lounge, and Danko gloats over the captured. "I'm smarter than the average bear," he says. HRG suggests Rebel is going to try to rescue Tracy, and that they should let him try. And if it goes wrong, HRG will kill Tracy himself.
Meanwhile, Hiro and Ando try to figure out the mystery of Baby Matt. Ando points out that they were sent to save the Matt that's at that address, and maybe they need to save Baby Matt. The TV comes on at random. It happens to be showing footage of Big Matt getting taken down in Washington DC. And it's unplugged. Apparently the rug rat's ability is to make anything work by touching it. Anything. Can he touch the show?
A kerfluffle in the streets! Angela's car gets stopped at a roadblock, her chauffeur dragged out and beaten, and Angela yanked out, too.. Oh, but Angela's just dozed off, and sees that event happening in the near future! (I did not quite get that on the first viewing - hooray for the immediate rewatch!) She wakes up and tells the chauffeur not to stop the car. Before he can reply, he gets yanked out. Angie calmly steps out on the street and walks away, cozying up to some handsome stranger with an umbrella. That's my girl; cucumbers swelter in her presence.
For some reason Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander are credited! WTF? Maybe they were in the writer's room when this story was being broken or something... but that's so weird. I'll never understand television credits for people who've been fired.
The power goes out in Building 26 and HRG actually - no really, I didn't make this up - says "Rebel rebel," thus causing thousands of people to simultaneously sing, "YOU TORE YOUR DRESS!" Tracy freezes herself free. She sets Mo and Matt free, too, and Matt insists on taking the injured Daphne along over Tracy's cold-blooded (get it?) objection. Meanwhile, Danko and HRG are unruffled, knowing that the power outage is Rebel's doing. "Take 'em both out," Danko suggests. "Consider it self defense." Oooh, he hates mutants. I love him.
Shoes. OMG shoes. These shoes rule. These shoes suck! Let's get some shoes. In a swanky boutique, someone chooses a perfect pair of black, high-heeled ankle boots. It's Tracy, thinking of fashion first thing, as fugitive ladies are wont to do. HRG shows up at her dressing room, shows her his gun (not like that!) and tells her that she made a mistake leaving Matt behind. After getting hassled by the chic-butch sales assistant, he asks her who Rebel is, and demands that she lead him there. Otherwise, she's screwed. She should have probably gone for the Reeboks. (And is it my imagination, or does she have a black eye? Healing, sure, with makeup on it, but that looks like a shiner to me.)
At the hospital, Matt takes Daphne to the emergency room, and does some Jedi mind tricks to get her through. He calls her "Janice". Oh, that's not nice - as we will find out more explicitly later.
Hiro is Trek-geeking about Baby Matt being a Baby Genesis Device (so awesome, and also, UH NOT REALLY, that's not exactly how the Genesis Device works... ). Ando tells him he's crazy, and then psychoanalyzes Hiro about his parental complexes. Hiro tries to shrug it off, but he's feeling his feelings, and lapses into having bad memories about the death of his mother. ACT, MASI! ACT! Hiro and Ando both try not to cry, and Hiro tries to be brave for the baby despite his flagrantly silly hair. OMG THATS SO CUTE. But cuter still is the E.T. shoutout as they hide in the stuffies with only their faces sticking out of a wall of toys. AWWWWWWWWW. Janice (!!! YAY!) totally notices them anyway. She's still a bitch, and she looks fabulous. I love her. Love Lisa Lackey; glad to see her again!
As Tracy walks down the street, ATMs spew money and train tickets at her. WOW! YAY! IT'S MICAH! AND HE'S A MAN NOW! Seriously, his voice is getting toward James Earl Jones levels. Way to age two years in three months, dude! (It does happen, actually; I've seen it. But not quite that dramatically. Will they fanwank it?) It is Old Home Week on Heroes. Sure, its a naked ploy to tug on our Season One heartstrings, but it totally works for me. Just because I know they're illusions doesn't wreck the fact that it looks like magic.
!!!! SWOOSIE KURTZ !!!! is reading a book about Ronald Reagan as she sits in a restaurant; her character's name is Millie. Angela joins her... let me guess... they are sisters. They look very similar, but that could just be the showbiz. They could also just be old society-bitch friends. Cristine Rose looks very fetching with wet, disheveled hair and a cold-reddened nose. Anyway... they chat... Angela asks for some help, needing to disappear, and after advising her to turn herself in, reluctantly, Millie gives Angela some money. Angela swipes her umbrella and takes off.
Ando and Hiro try to explain that Baby Matt could be in danger, and that he's special. Janice knows about the mutant weirdness, and says that it started during the eclipse (the recent one, I guess), just like what happened with Big Matt. Then she retorts that Big Matt's not a hero; he's a terrorist. Hiro and Ando explain what's going on with the fascist government and the pogroms and the spooky spooky paranoia. Ando demonstrates his sparkle motion, which is more orangey than pink nowadays... Janice is pretty chill at the sight of that, where I would have been screaming like someone just set my underwear on fire. Just then, the Men in Black show up to take "her and her son in for questioning". Oh, dear. Janice tries to fake them out (keeping her composure most excellently - she is a lawyer, after all, I guess), but they don't believe her.. and bust into the house. Ando then demonstrates that he can fling his orange sparks (mmm, Sparks) and knock people out with them... uh, how? But cool! He gets punched in the face for his trouble... And then Hiro gets his ability back! (His attempts to make the baby perform the "Yatta!" fist pump is sadly, hilariously unsuccessful.) The day is saved! Sort of. Hiro can stop time, but not teleport. So he gets a wheelbarrow and wheels Ando out... and .... yeah, that's my show all right. Clever and impossibly silly at the same time. IS THAT SO WRONG?
In the hospital, Daphne wakes up, surrounded by fan letters and cards addressed to Gwen Stefani. Hilarious! Matt wakes up, too, and they have a laugh. Daphne asks about being called Janice... and Matt explains, awkwardly. Daphne is like, "Wow, we totally don't know each other. Oh yeah. Uh, why are we together again?" and tries to walk out of his life - really fast, of course. And does. Matt looks sheepish. Poor dear.
Tracy, at Union Station, picks up her fake IDs and passport, then starts feeling freaked. Micah comes up and helpfully explains that he's Rebel. Shocker. Not. She sadly confesses that they're coming for him, and he yelps, "You're bait? You SUCK! My MPD-psycho mom's evil personality didn't even suck as bad as you do, and that bitch almost broke my arm!" A fake gas leak alarm comes over the P.A., and the crowd at the station scatters. They try to make a run for it.
Out on the street, Angela sees some MiBs and also makes a run for it, into a swanky apartment building (a co-op, maybe? I can't get the San Remo out of my mind) where she just barely escapes into an elevator. SWAT guys swarm into the lobby. Angela looks starkly terrified. The elevator stops, and then starts going down again. Angela looks a lot less afraid than she did a minute ago... In the lobby, the elevator doors open, revealing Angela casually draped over a very yummy-looking PETER "My girlfriends end up dead" PETRELLI. They look at the SWAT guys calmly, and Peter flies them straight up, out the conveniently open elevator car doors. Whew! That was close! Good thing he was there and all! In the right elevator shaft with the right tools and the right ability! Fuck plausibility! We've got a story to tell! Hi, Pete!
Tracy and Micah walk along the street and Micah gives her a lecture on ethics. In a parking garage (never go to a parking garage, people) the bad guys approach, and they hide. Sadly, she tells him to tell the sprinklers to turn on... oh this is going to be cool... because for some reason none of these SWAT guys will take a clear shot when it's right in front of them.And as the parking garage fills with water, she lets the guys run right up to her before she freezes everything. And it's GORGEOUS. Everything and everyone ices over - including Tracy. Danko walks up to Tracy-sicle and shoots her in the chest. Crackle. Collapse.
Goodbye, Tracy. Now it's either on to Barbara, or bye-bye Ali, nice knowing you! And you know what? If they can't make her characters work, let her go, for God's sake. If they're going to put all their female sex-object eggs in the Hayden basket (which, IMHO, is a terrible mistake), let Ali take on more work elsewhere. Ali Larter deserves better than what she's been given, and she can get it, too. You know I don't front; I love this show. But if she left the show, I wouldn't be sorry - and I won't really miss her. I'd rather see her in a hyperviolent science fiction movie, anyway.
That scene wins the Pretty Bullshit Award of the year. I can't even imagine how they could have a scene that was prettier, or more bullshit, than that. I love it.
Hiro has taken Ando in the barrow a long way away (12 miles, he says? Gosh, that guy is in mad shape these days), and steals a bottle of formula to feed the future bruiser. He bonds with the baby, kissing him and everything, and then restarts time... and they're at the Greyhound station! How handy! By damn, Masi Oka is kicking the shit out of this episode. He and Bryan Fuller really complement each other; it's the Joss Whedon/Sarah Michelle Gellar factor.
Meanwhile Daphne is having a West Side Story moment, sitting in a neon sign on a rooftop - and has brushed her hair. And somehow - now Matt can fly. HUH? But Bryan Fuller's cornball romantic side will not be denied! They go on a schmoopy flight around nighttime Paris... oh dear Lord... I'm going into sugar shock... but for God's sake, they're supposedly flying, but they are so obviously just standing there that I don't even know what to feel. In mid air, Daphne asks to be let go. "We're still in the hospital, aren't we?" she determined. Matts all, Oh, oops. "I just wanted to make you happy," he explains sadly. Daphne's all smiles. "You'd do anything? Fly me to the moon." Is that a euphemism, like "going downtown" or "the little man in the canoe"? But anyway, he does. They shoot off to the moon together.
And then she dies.
Noooooooooooo oh well. Fuck. Denial stage. Guilt, anger, and bargaining to follow.
Peter's staring out into the night, haunted and looking supremely, homicidally pissed off, out of the tiara of the Statue of Liberty. "So what do you want to do now?" he asks his mother.
Corny as all get out. Now we need to go to the Grand Canyon, and have a scene on the Golden Gate Bridge, and maybe Mount Rushmore.
Wow, that was a hell of a thing. No Claire, no Nathan, very little Peter, but a cavalcade of guest stars, blasts from the past, and KILLING OFF TWO BLONDES IN ONE HOUR. Wow!... I... way to bring me down, show! Wildly uneven, with the shitty parts thrown into stark relief with the wonderful parts. The wonderful far, far outweighs the shitty.
So glad Bryan Fuller is back. And yet - I do wonder how this episode will be received. I'm putting on my helmet.
Written by Bryan Fuller; directed by Greg Yaitanes. What the fuck else do you need to know? IT'S GOOD! And also intermittently extremely stupid. But purty to look at and fun to watch, without a doubt.
Nathan gets the "previously." God, I love his voice.
Danko washes his face and shaves (and I can already taste the Bryan Fuller!) but is interrupted by an alarm. His security system informs him, over and over again, "Front door open," and he grabs his gun to go check it out. Handing in the windowsill is Eric Doyle, all strung up like a puppet. He's got a note on him that says "My gift to you" and I swear to God, Bryan Fuller must have marched back into the writer's room and said "Its my fucking show now, bitches. Do it my way from now on; you still won't get ratings, but it'll be a show like no other, one to be remembered and lauded. A cult show. Just make a real cult show and you'll be fed for the rest of your lives. Has George Takei taught you nothing?"
Pouring rain. HRG gets into a car with Angela. He's got shaving cuts stopped with little squares of toilet paper on his face (BRYAN, CALM DOWN! We're doing what you say!). He tells her this isn't safe, but she needs to establish a few things. Angela knows Nathan is an endlessly forgiving sap, but she's afraid that Peter will never forgive her, and tells HRG that he's her only hope. She tells him to bring Rebel to Danko as a parting gift, to throw him off the scent of, well, her mutant ass. She also gives him her umbrella, and he tells her not to go home. It's backscratching time on Heroes.
In Building 26, Mohinder follows Danko into the room (the door hilariously marked "Human Resources") where all the captured specials are laid out with drug tubes up their noses. Daphne's there, in bad shape. Danko tells Mo that Nathan flew away... and then one of his goons tasers Mo in his hunky, hunky chest and puts him down. Danko smirks triumphantly, "And let's see if we can make up a bed for Miss Strauss." (Who is currently still in sexy red-lit bondage, breathing out cold-steam to dissolve the episode's title chyron...)
NICE. Welcome back, Bryan. You kick ass.
HRG comes in to the Specials' Naptime Lounge, and Danko gloats over the captured. "I'm smarter than the average bear," he says. HRG suggests Rebel is going to try to rescue Tracy, and that they should let him try. And if it goes wrong, HRG will kill Tracy himself.
Meanwhile, Hiro and Ando try to figure out the mystery of Baby Matt. Ando points out that they were sent to save the Matt that's at that address, and maybe they need to save Baby Matt. The TV comes on at random. It happens to be showing footage of Big Matt getting taken down in Washington DC. And it's unplugged. Apparently the rug rat's ability is to make anything work by touching it. Anything. Can he touch the show?
A kerfluffle in the streets! Angela's car gets stopped at a roadblock, her chauffeur dragged out and beaten, and Angela yanked out, too.. Oh, but Angela's just dozed off, and sees that event happening in the near future! (I did not quite get that on the first viewing - hooray for the immediate rewatch!) She wakes up and tells the chauffeur not to stop the car. Before he can reply, he gets yanked out. Angie calmly steps out on the street and walks away, cozying up to some handsome stranger with an umbrella. That's my girl; cucumbers swelter in her presence.
For some reason Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander are credited! WTF? Maybe they were in the writer's room when this story was being broken or something... but that's so weird. I'll never understand television credits for people who've been fired.
The power goes out in Building 26 and HRG actually - no really, I didn't make this up - says "Rebel rebel," thus causing thousands of people to simultaneously sing, "YOU TORE YOUR DRESS!" Tracy freezes herself free. She sets Mo and Matt free, too, and Matt insists on taking the injured Daphne along over Tracy's cold-blooded (get it?) objection. Meanwhile, Danko and HRG are unruffled, knowing that the power outage is Rebel's doing. "Take 'em both out," Danko suggests. "Consider it self defense." Oooh, he hates mutants. I love him.
Shoes. OMG shoes. These shoes rule. These shoes suck! Let's get some shoes. In a swanky boutique, someone chooses a perfect pair of black, high-heeled ankle boots. It's Tracy, thinking of fashion first thing, as fugitive ladies are wont to do. HRG shows up at her dressing room, shows her his gun (not like that!) and tells her that she made a mistake leaving Matt behind. After getting hassled by the chic-butch sales assistant, he asks her who Rebel is, and demands that she lead him there. Otherwise, she's screwed. She should have probably gone for the Reeboks. (And is it my imagination, or does she have a black eye? Healing, sure, with makeup on it, but that looks like a shiner to me.)
At the hospital, Matt takes Daphne to the emergency room, and does some Jedi mind tricks to get her through. He calls her "Janice". Oh, that's not nice - as we will find out more explicitly later.
Hiro is Trek-geeking about Baby Matt being a Baby Genesis Device (so awesome, and also, UH NOT REALLY, that's not exactly how the Genesis Device works... ). Ando tells him he's crazy, and then psychoanalyzes Hiro about his parental complexes. Hiro tries to shrug it off, but he's feeling his feelings, and lapses into having bad memories about the death of his mother. ACT, MASI! ACT! Hiro and Ando both try not to cry, and Hiro tries to be brave for the baby despite his flagrantly silly hair. OMG THATS SO CUTE. But cuter still is the E.T. shoutout as they hide in the stuffies with only their faces sticking out of a wall of toys. AWWWWWWWWW. Janice (!!! YAY!) totally notices them anyway. She's still a bitch, and she looks fabulous. I love her. Love Lisa Lackey; glad to see her again!
As Tracy walks down the street, ATMs spew money and train tickets at her. WOW! YAY! IT'S MICAH! AND HE'S A MAN NOW! Seriously, his voice is getting toward James Earl Jones levels. Way to age two years in three months, dude! (It does happen, actually; I've seen it. But not quite that dramatically. Will they fanwank it?) It is Old Home Week on Heroes. Sure, its a naked ploy to tug on our Season One heartstrings, but it totally works for me. Just because I know they're illusions doesn't wreck the fact that it looks like magic.
!!!! SWOOSIE KURTZ !!!! is reading a book about Ronald Reagan as she sits in a restaurant; her character's name is Millie. Angela joins her... let me guess... they are sisters. They look very similar, but that could just be the showbiz. They could also just be old society-bitch friends. Cristine Rose looks very fetching with wet, disheveled hair and a cold-reddened nose. Anyway... they chat... Angela asks for some help, needing to disappear, and after advising her to turn herself in, reluctantly, Millie gives Angela some money. Angela swipes her umbrella and takes off.
Ando and Hiro try to explain that Baby Matt could be in danger, and that he's special. Janice knows about the mutant weirdness, and says that it started during the eclipse (the recent one, I guess), just like what happened with Big Matt. Then she retorts that Big Matt's not a hero; he's a terrorist. Hiro and Ando explain what's going on with the fascist government and the pogroms and the spooky spooky paranoia. Ando demonstrates his sparkle motion, which is more orangey than pink nowadays... Janice is pretty chill at the sight of that, where I would have been screaming like someone just set my underwear on fire. Just then, the Men in Black show up to take "her and her son in for questioning". Oh, dear. Janice tries to fake them out (keeping her composure most excellently - she is a lawyer, after all, I guess), but they don't believe her.. and bust into the house. Ando then demonstrates that he can fling his orange sparks (mmm, Sparks) and knock people out with them... uh, how? But cool! He gets punched in the face for his trouble... And then Hiro gets his ability back! (His attempts to make the baby perform the "Yatta!" fist pump is sadly, hilariously unsuccessful.) The day is saved! Sort of. Hiro can stop time, but not teleport. So he gets a wheelbarrow and wheels Ando out... and .... yeah, that's my show all right. Clever and impossibly silly at the same time. IS THAT SO WRONG?
In the hospital, Daphne wakes up, surrounded by fan letters and cards addressed to Gwen Stefani. Hilarious! Matt wakes up, too, and they have a laugh. Daphne asks about being called Janice... and Matt explains, awkwardly. Daphne is like, "Wow, we totally don't know each other. Oh yeah. Uh, why are we together again?" and tries to walk out of his life - really fast, of course. And does. Matt looks sheepish. Poor dear.
Tracy, at Union Station, picks up her fake IDs and passport, then starts feeling freaked. Micah comes up and helpfully explains that he's Rebel. Shocker. Not. She sadly confesses that they're coming for him, and he yelps, "You're bait? You SUCK! My MPD-psycho mom's evil personality didn't even suck as bad as you do, and that bitch almost broke my arm!" A fake gas leak alarm comes over the P.A., and the crowd at the station scatters. They try to make a run for it.
Out on the street, Angela sees some MiBs and also makes a run for it, into a swanky apartment building (a co-op, maybe? I can't get the San Remo out of my mind) where she just barely escapes into an elevator. SWAT guys swarm into the lobby. Angela looks starkly terrified. The elevator stops, and then starts going down again. Angela looks a lot less afraid than she did a minute ago... In the lobby, the elevator doors open, revealing Angela casually draped over a very yummy-looking PETER "My girlfriends end up dead" PETRELLI. They look at the SWAT guys calmly, and Peter flies them straight up, out the conveniently open elevator car doors. Whew! That was close! Good thing he was there and all! In the right elevator shaft with the right tools and the right ability! Fuck plausibility! We've got a story to tell! Hi, Pete!
Tracy and Micah walk along the street and Micah gives her a lecture on ethics. In a parking garage (never go to a parking garage, people) the bad guys approach, and they hide. Sadly, she tells him to tell the sprinklers to turn on... oh this is going to be cool... because for some reason none of these SWAT guys will take a clear shot when it's right in front of them.And as the parking garage fills with water, she lets the guys run right up to her before she freezes everything. And it's GORGEOUS. Everything and everyone ices over - including Tracy. Danko walks up to Tracy-sicle and shoots her in the chest. Crackle. Collapse.
Goodbye, Tracy. Now it's either on to Barbara, or bye-bye Ali, nice knowing you! And you know what? If they can't make her characters work, let her go, for God's sake. If they're going to put all their female sex-object eggs in the Hayden basket (which, IMHO, is a terrible mistake), let Ali take on more work elsewhere. Ali Larter deserves better than what she's been given, and she can get it, too. You know I don't front; I love this show. But if she left the show, I wouldn't be sorry - and I won't really miss her. I'd rather see her in a hyperviolent science fiction movie, anyway.
That scene wins the Pretty Bullshit Award of the year. I can't even imagine how they could have a scene that was prettier, or more bullshit, than that. I love it.
Hiro has taken Ando in the barrow a long way away (12 miles, he says? Gosh, that guy is in mad shape these days), and steals a bottle of formula to feed the future bruiser. He bonds with the baby, kissing him and everything, and then restarts time... and they're at the Greyhound station! How handy! By damn, Masi Oka is kicking the shit out of this episode. He and Bryan Fuller really complement each other; it's the Joss Whedon/Sarah Michelle Gellar factor.
Meanwhile Daphne is having a West Side Story moment, sitting in a neon sign on a rooftop - and has brushed her hair. And somehow - now Matt can fly. HUH? But Bryan Fuller's cornball romantic side will not be denied! They go on a schmoopy flight around nighttime Paris... oh dear Lord... I'm going into sugar shock... but for God's sake, they're supposedly flying, but they are so obviously just standing there that I don't even know what to feel. In mid air, Daphne asks to be let go. "We're still in the hospital, aren't we?" she determined. Matts all, Oh, oops. "I just wanted to make you happy," he explains sadly. Daphne's all smiles. "You'd do anything? Fly me to the moon." Is that a euphemism, like "going downtown" or "the little man in the canoe"? But anyway, he does. They shoot off to the moon together.
And then she dies.
Noooooooooooo oh well. Fuck. Denial stage. Guilt, anger, and bargaining to follow.
Peter's staring out into the night, haunted and looking supremely, homicidally pissed off, out of the tiara of the Statue of Liberty. "So what do you want to do now?" he asks his mother.
Corny as all get out. Now we need to go to the Grand Canyon, and have a scene on the Golden Gate Bridge, and maybe Mount Rushmore.
Wow, that was a hell of a thing. No Claire, no Nathan, very little Peter, but a cavalcade of guest stars, blasts from the past, and KILLING OFF TWO BLONDES IN ONE HOUR. Wow!... I... way to bring me down, show! Wildly uneven, with the shitty parts thrown into stark relief with the wonderful parts. The wonderful far, far outweighs the shitty.
So glad Bryan Fuller is back. And yet - I do wonder how this episode will be received. I'm putting on my helmet.