Lost : Thoughts

Lost was a really great "binge show". I watched it this spring, starting just about when the series concluded. The fact that I live under a rock helped me avoid all the discussion regarding the finale. This show has been on my list for years - since middle school, when I was not allowed to watch "grown up shows" - because of Dominic Monaghan and my insane Lord of the Rings fandom. I figured that now that it's over, what better time to start, right?

It was very good. The whole of it, minus the final season, was on Netflix Watch Instantly, which made it so easy to access. Despite theories that the writers haven't had any idea what they've been doing since day one, the show was very well crafted [early CGI polar bears almost turned me off of it all though] in visual, written, and intellectual ways. It's one of those shows that you actually have to watch because if you miss thirty seconds, you won't have any idea what's going on for the next four episodes. Every episode, no matter how ridiculous, left me craving the next, which is an incredibly good thing for a television show.

The show takes a lot of effort to experience, but it's really something of a television masterpiece, and the journey is well worth the hours of your life that you'll spend watching it.

The A-Team - I Liked It!

[Cross-posted from 4:12.]




Comic book hero movies and summer blockbusters haven't necessarily been good. Ever. Of course there are a few gems out there. That's only natural. I mean, last summer the only movie we had to look forward to that fit that profile - based on a comic book, huge budget summer blockbuster, lots of explosions - was the infamous Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. So I understand why anyone might be wary when it comes to 2010's The A-Team.

But it was really good.

That's right. I liked it a lot.

First of all, the cast was amazing. Obviously, the original team was built perfectly - you've got the brains, brawn, charm, and the wild card. None of them would be particularly amazing alone, but when you bring their very specific talents together, the team is basically unstoppable. The team in the movie specifically was all that and more. Liam Neeson does wonderfully as the no-nonsense, intelligent, plan-it guy slash killing machine. No question there. A part towards the end I found myself thinking, "Of course he's not dead, didn't you see Taken?" Bradley Cooper, of Hangover fame had me nervous for a little while. Before I saw the film, I was thinking, "How could this charmer from The Hangover POSSIBLY fit in with Liam Neeson the BAMF in an action hero movie?," but he worked so well as Face. Of course, I don't know the original A-Team, but his character was charming, silly, and excellently executed. Then, of course, there was Sharlto Copley, better known as Wikus from District 9. Initially, I was worried he was just going to be a stereotype of a crazy guy, because that's definitely how he came off in the beginning, but he was pretty amazing. He had me laughing much of the movie through, and when things got rough, he pulled something crazy out of his bum and saved entire operations. For instance [spoiler], he and B.A. are trying to clear customs and he was supposed to be the rabbi and B.A. was supposed to be from an African country but their passports get switched, so to keep his cover, Murdock ends up improvising Swahili, and it worked. Then there was B.A., played by Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, an actor I have never seen or heard of before, though apparently he was in one of Jesson's favourites, The Midnight Meat Train. He was also very good - he never tried to be Mr. T., which I think was very appropriate, and he filled out the character quite nicely, bringing him a human side and a charm that one might not expect from a comic book depiction of "the muscle". Overall, the acting was exceptional and the characters all worked together wonderfully.

The plot was fairly decent too - it wasn't about taking down bad guys or saving the world so much as clearing their own names. But for that reason [spoiler], the ending was unsatisfactory. They clear their names but "breaking out of prison is still illegal," so they have to go back in. Face got his ex back, too, which at first bugged me a lot - she doesn't deserve him - but [spoiler] she actually slips him the key to the handcuffs through an overly-passionate kiss, leaving the ending wide open. Though if the cast is the same and the plot is as good, I would definitely not mind seeing a sequel in a couple years.

The effects were great but the CGI was never overwhelming, which is typically a problem that's been bothering me a lot in more recent movies.

There were also times where the dialogue was a little... cheesey... bordering on awful. But the chemistry of the actors and the light-hearted feel of the whole movie more than make up for any faults. I would be lying if I said anything short of "I loved it". I highly recommend this movie - and face it, if you want to see a movie this summer, your other options are kids' movies [though Toy Story 3 was amazing and I've heard good things about Despicable Me, they're simply not for everybody], Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Twilight Saga: Eclipse. So weigh your options carefully : I think you'll find that, besides Toy Story 3 if you're into it, The A-Team will be the best movie you see all summer.

Unless Inception turns out to be really good.

A Study In Scarlet

On the train home from college, today, I finished A Study In Scarlet, the first of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The book reads like 'one of those old books', but I loved it all the same.

The narrative is from Watson's point of view, following him home from Afghanistan, through the adventure of finding a roommate, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, learning about what sort of person he is, and then watching him solve a mystery. Part II takes on a strikingly different tone, as it is told from an omniscient third-person point of view. This is the story of victims of the Mormon community, of the murderers, turned victims themselves in London, and of the vengeful man Holmes arrests in his own apartment. After that tale, Watson's narrative resumes and the case is brought to a close.

I really liked this book. It is not necessarily a book you can analyse AP-English style, like A Brave New World was; or perhaps it is, but the reader does not feel the distinct need to do so. The part in the desert reads like a historical fan-fic, bringing in familiar characters like the Salt Lake Mormons, and, more specifically, an appearance by Brigham Young, but that does not mean it is bad. It reads not only well but beautifully, with vivid descriptions and a captivating storyline. Furthermore, as the first of the Holmes stories, the reader needs no background knowledge to understand the characters; Doyle introduces them for the first time here. This book is a wonderful read and I would highly recommend it. It's a great place to start for any aspiring Sherlock Holmes fan [like me], or for anybody looking for a fun story into which one can escape.

On a side note: I'd known that the character, House, was loosely based on Holmes, and after reading the first descriptions of him, I could definitely see it, right down to being a wonderful musician. You'll have to read it and see for yourself!

Fringe - August

Fringe - Season 2, Episode 8: "August". Original Air Date: 19 November, 2009.

Michael Cerveris is back! He, and a bunch of other Observers have been sighted all over the place. So one of the Observers, August, who is not Michael Cerveris, kidnaps a girl to save her from a crashing plane. The other Observers are mad that he interfered, because she was supposed to die on that plane.

Meanwhile, the Team is trying to find him because, for all they know, he's kidnapped her.In the end, August realises what he has to do. The other Observers have hired an assassin to kill the girl, because she is not supposed to be alive, and they can't understand why he saved her [if you want to know, it's because he watched her grow up after her parents died, and he feels an emotional connexion to her, almost as a father figure] because she is, seemingly, unimportant. He risks his life for that girl and makes her important, by being implicated in the death of one of Them. And now she gets to live.

There was a lot of hype for this episode, and I don't really feel like it lived up to it. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun, intriguing episode... but it just wasn't that great. It wasn't very good compared to other episodes, and it didn't live up to the anticipatory advertisements and the real-life Observers planted around the country in cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago. For something that was expected to be so big, it felt fairly insignificant.

If you would like to see a sample of my notes on this episode:
MICHAEL CERVERIS IS A BAMF
Olivia is the most amazing woman evar and she's scared of roller coasters *love*
Too many Michael Cerverises. They are not all Michael Cerveris.
I have to go out. I would prefer not to gag you.
WHY IS MICHAEL CERVERIS NOT IMPORTANT IN THIS EPISODE?!

Fringe - Earthling

Fringe - Season 2, Episode 6: "Earthling". Original Air Date: 5 November, 2009.

OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH FRINGE IS BACK FROM THE WORLD SERIES BREAK! Wait, hold that excitement...
This episode of Fringe was another one that has very little to do with 'the pattern'. In fact, it seemed to be just an episode, and I wasn't in love with it. Maybe because my roommate had company, and they were loud, and I didn't get the same effect, but I can't be sure. The idea was they found this 'shadow man' who stole radiation from people's bodies, unfortunately, leaving them as dust. Very dead dust. "Except for the penthouse guy; he died of bad luck." This case had been Broyles's four years before, and he thought he'd fixed it, and now it's back to haunt him. We learn a lot about the guy because of this: some of his backstory [he had a wife and kids, for instance] and some of his character development. Always a good thing. So Walter tries to figure out what's going on as the killings become more frequent. There were Russian cosmonauts, outerspace organisms, and just general fun Fringe stuff.

I'm sorry this one's something of a crummy 'review', but the episode wasn't wonderful and didn't give me much to talk about, I think. There was very little Walter, Peter, or Olivia. The most character development was with Broyles, which is definitely not a bad thing, but I would have liked to see the episode a little more far-reaching.

Castle - Famous Last Words

Castle - Season 2, Episode 7: "Famous Last Words". Original Air Date: 2 November, 2009.

This was a wonderful episode! It begins with Alexis, almost in tears [or very recently in tears, I guess], and she asks her father if it's true that Hayley Blue, the lead singer of her favourite band, is dead. It is. The crime scene is staged to look like a recent music video of hers, and the team follows a lead to her... most enthusiastic fan. A.K.A. stalker. He leads them to the band's guitarist, who leads them to the producers who had taken her in and paid for her rehab. Apparently she was like a daughter to them. In the end, they arrest the wife, but she is adament that it was not her. Of course, they don't believe her, but one look at the husband... Well, Castle hears her final song again, and he realises they've got the wrong guy: it was the husband. He had forced himself on her and later killed her. The episode ends with Beckett, Castle, Alexis, and Castle's mom [I really need to start remembering her name] at a Hayley Blue memorial concert, and, aw how cute, they look like a family. Or something.

I loved this episode. We see more of the relationship between Castle and Alexis, but through Beckett. She says it best when she says that she's so used to seeing Castle act like a twelve year old that it's weird [strange? refreshing?] to see him play the part of the father. And at the end, when Castle is confronting the man who raped the rock star, he's really into it, on the verge of tears, it would seem. The whole episode was really intense, with the same formula of leads and disappointments. Not much changes in the Beckett/Castle dynamic, though.

I also realised, just before watching this, that my Monday nights are all about architecture: first I watch House, then I watch Castle.

Castle - Vampire Weekend

Castle - Season 2, Episode 6: "Vampire Weekend". Original Air Date: 26 October, 2009.

America's current vampire obsession has invaded... my half of the world...

It's Halloween, and Castle is preparing for a big party. He keeps mentioning it to Beckett, reminding her that costumes are mandatory, and hinting that he'd love to see her in something sexy. But even more important is the case: a vampire was murdered by a stake through the heart, in a cemetary. Yeah. Apparently this boy, Crow, belonged to a small geek community of vampires [I say geek meaning a person who is fascinated by one specific thing or culture and strives to live as close to the object of his emulation as possible, no negative connotations intended]. He was a young artist, who, together with his friend Damon, also found murdered, was creating a graphic novel about a real life NYC vampire named Morlock. The team finds Morloch and takes him into custody. He's a case, because he has a condition, I forget what it's called but its nick-name is the Vampires' Disease, and he is very sensitive to sunlight, to the point where his skin burns and blisters up with contact. With that condition come hallucinations and other craziness, so it's no wonder he actually believes he's a vampire. In the end, it was his insane babble and crazy talk that solved the case. Crow's step-mother had killed his mother so she could marry the father, and now, many years later, Crow figures this out and so she kills him too, trying to frame his group of vampire friends because of his father's disdain for them, in an effort to keep her husband close to her. In the meantime, Alexis is going to her first 'real' high school party with her friend and co-parent [for a health class baby egg project], and her dad knows she won't get into any trouble, but he tells her to call him if she feels uncomfortable or compromised in any way because he will come get her, no questions asked, no punishment. She thinks she won't have to, but she does because the punch was spiked and her friend was really wasted. Castle picks them up and does the right thing in calling the girl's parents, despite Alexis's protests that she would get in a lot of trouble. In the end, the friend was so mad that she broke the egg baby.

The episode was good, and very Halloweeny. Castle began the episode by saying how much he loved Halloween, but Beckett says it's the worst as far as weird crimes. I think the show did a decent job, too, and not making fun of the geeks. Of course, individual characters mocked the vampire Covent a little, but the way they were portrayed in the show was as a little weird, definitely different from the 'norm', but not dangerous or bad or stupid. And, I know I say this a lot, but I really love the relationship between Alexis and her father. There are so few 'like me' teenagers on television, whether it be adult programming on basic channels, like this, or on pre-teen shows on Disney. This girl is well-adjusted, has a few issues, but nothing she can't handle, and she's not angsty or slutty or deceitful like so many TV teens are. In this episode, she had to learn a bit of a lesson between choosing the right thing and the easy thing, but she followed her father's orders, and doing differently in that situation could have ended really badly.

The Tempest

The Tempest by William Shakespeare, as performed by the students of Connecticut College on Sunday, 25 October, 2009.
This is a blatant copy and paste of an assignment I did for my acting class, which has also been copied and pasted to 4:12.


The Tempest was great. The effects were striking, the acting was fantastic, serious parts were serious, funny parts were funny, and everything ran smoothly and added up to create a great performance. And the set was beautiful, functional, and fitting for the play. One or two little pieces of clear green fabric created an entirely new setting. Everything was so intricate and well made, and created stunning levels for the actors to physically be on. The lights were good, too, especially the lightning. The sound was the only thing I didn’t love. In some scenes, the drumming drowned out the voices (and I was only in the second row!) so I think a better, or at least a quieter, approach might have been taken. But I liked the effect of the drumming, rain sticks, flutes, and singing. As far as the adaptation, I think it was wonderful, but personally, I’m a huge fan of the magic.

I think all the performers were successful. I especially liked the scenes with Caliban, Stefano, and Trinculo. They all knew exactly what they were fighting for (to kill Prospero, to drunkenly become Queen of the island, to get through this alive) and stuck to those goals; they were not only believable, but they made strong choices, like quivering in fear under a broken umbrella, and not being afraid to find themselves in actions or positions that, outside the theatre, might seem very odd. The three connected very well, too, which is what drew me to them the most. They were always with each other and never seemed to break focus, always listening and reacting, almost like they were hearing and saying the words for the first time.


Photo from production ©ConnColl 2009

Heroes - Strange Attractors

Heroes - Season 4, Episode 6: "Strange Attractors". Original Air Date: 26 Oct 09.

This was a fun, sad, and scary episode. It starts with sex - Sylar and Mrs. Parkman? Oh wait. That's Matt. Or.... What? Apparently Sylar has been taking over Matt's body little by little and it's driving Matt insane. His storyline quickly heats up, and eventually, he realises that the only way to protect his family from Sylar's control is to leave, and he tries to explain this to Janice. She insists that he stays in the house and she'll go. After she leaves, Matt starts drinking and he realises it's making Sylar hurt. He drinks and drinks until Sylar disappears, but then he blacks out. Janice comes back with the policeman who'd been helping Matt through therapy, and they wait until he wakes up. But now it's Sylar in control of the body and Matt is just the premonition; he has no control whatsoever. Scary!
There's also a Claire and Gretchen storyline. They get kidnapped and taken to some faraway location, which turns out to be a slaughterhouse, to do some initiation thing for the sorority. During the scavenger hunt there, Invisibitch tries to kill Gretchen twice; eventually there's a fight, and Claire ends up slightly impaled. Of course, that's no problem for her or Gretchen, but for the other two pledges, well let's just say they were more than a little freaked out. And this might mean uprooting Claire all over again. Sad!
And then there's Jeremy. He's being kept in the town jail and Noah can't get him out. He calls in a favour with Tracy Strauss, and he forges some paper work that makes her Jeremy's 'aunt' so that she can sign him out of jail. A brief meeting between Tracy and Samuel leaves Tracy wondering whether she should bring Jeremy to the carnival where he'll be at "home" or give him a new life where he can be invisible. When they finally get him out, half the town is lined up outside in protestation, and one man breaks through the police line and starts threatening him. Jeremy uses his power and kills the man and walks back into the jail. That night, a few cops decide to take the law into their own hands; they chain him to a pick-up truck and they drive away, leaving him dead. Noah is, of course, very upset, knowing that he failed him, and Tracy is equally as upset. Then Samuel comes in and destroys the police station with his brainnn.
And some little comments: I don't like the way they shoot Matt in close-ups, and Gretchen has the same IKEA comforter as I have at home! ♥ A fun quote from Gretchen: "Sounds like some crazy-ass conspiracy theory. Which... pretty much describes your entire life."

It was a good episode. It was gripping, to use the traditional review language. I wanted to keep watching, and I was genuinely upset when it was over because I wanted to keep watching. I'm a little tired and way behind on watching, so that's about all the opinion you'll get. Have fun watching this one!

Heroes - Tabula Rasa

House - Season 4, Episode 5: "Tabula Rasa". Original Air Date: 19 Oct 09.

This episode was called "Tabula Rasa" - because every show out there needs an episode called "Tabula Rasa". If you don't know, it means "Clean Slate", so it's symbolic.

So we left off with Hiro and Peter: Hiro appears in Peter's apartment and passes out. In the beginning of this installment, we see Hiro lying in a hospital bed with Peter at his side. Hiro thinks he's there to save Peter, but Peter thinks it's up to him to save Hiro. Oh you boys and your silly Jesus complexes... Peter takes Hiro's ability and uses it to go save Hiro's life, but not before telling Emma [the deaf woman] to talk to Hiro about her ability. She does, but all she wants is an 'off switch', even though Hiro's all for the embracing yourself as you are point of view.
Okay, now it's time for my interjection: HIRO IS SO CUTE!! ♥ :3 Yup.
Hiro's trying to prove to Emma that her powers are good, and he does a magic show for some hospital patients and staff, including making Emma 'disappear'. I think it worked :D
After the show, Hiro's back in bed and Emma tells him he needs to stay there. He tells her about his friend, Charlie, and how you have to stay strong and happy in the face of death. But then he realised he left Charlie off of his list [of wrongs to right and people to save]!!
By the end of the episode, Hiro spontaneously disappears again, which freaks Emma and Peter out, a lot.

So Peter ends up in Noah's bathroom because he hasn't teleported in a while. He explains his predicament to HRG, and Claire says that she should just give Hiro some of her blood; Noah negates this solution, saying that a brain tumour is living tissue, and Claire's regenerative power would only make the tumour grow. But he does remember a boy they 'bagged and tagged' a few years ago, named Jeremy, who had healing power [like Linderman!], so he and Peter go to pay him a visit.
They find the house that Jeremy lives in, but all the plants in the yard and the bird on the porch are dead, and the place reeks of death. When they go inside, they find the parents, dead, in their armchairs [it's pretty disturbing, lol]. Noah explains that the kid possesses not only the power to give life, but also to take it away. A very frightened Jeremy starts shooting at them with a shotgun: he wants to scare them away. When Noah finally gets close enough to talk to him, Jeremy makes a terribly conffesion: "Everything I touch... dies."
As Noah tries to convince Jeremy that this can't be true, Peter appears beside them and Jeremy shoots him from an extremely close range! NOOOO PETER WTF NOOOOO!!! Noah pleads with Jeremy to save Peter's life, and after much convincing, he finally does. Yay! :D
In the end, Peter absorbs Jeremy's power so he can bring it back to heal Hiro. Noah is very sweet with Jeremy because he feels he let him down way back when, so he fixes the house to make it look like the parents died of Carbon Monoxide poisoning.
But, when Peter gets back, Hiro's already vanished!

While all of this is happening, Nathlar is still in the hands of the carnies. Samuel Sullivan, the guy I've been calling King Carnie [at least to myself, lol], calls Nathlar 'Sylar', but he doesn't respond. He says that according to the police, his name is Gabriel. When Samuel asks him to take a deep breath and tell him the first name that comes to mind, Nathlar says, "Call me Nathan." Samuel is confused. But, for all his niceness, Samuel obviously has plans for Nathlar, and he's using Lydia to pull him in to the community.
But here's a question: if we really do get the 'real' Sylar back, won't the whole carnival be screwed?
Samuel Sullivan wants Sylar's memories to come back to him; memories are coming back to Nathlar, but they're not his. They're Nathan's. He remembers flying planes, shaking a lot of hands, and things like that. So a carnie named Damien takes Nathlar into the house of mirrors to 'show him who he really is' or something. Tripppyyyyy. I love mirror house scenes [in anything] because they're so... weird.. haha. Well, Damien's eyes do that Isaac Mendez painting thing and he passes it on to Nathlar... And now, all his horrible memories are being played out before him in the mirrors. He sort of flips out. I would too. I mean, can you imagine? Watching yourself kill your mother and then several other innocent people? So Nathlar's still flipping out, and we get to remember all the worst, and it's not fun. Charlie is the last one we see before he runs out of the house and vomits in a trash can - foreshadowing for the Hiro story arch?
So Samuel is a jerk: he invited the cop who was chasing Nathlar to the carnival with a pair of free tickets, and when he talks to the cop, he says no he's never seen that man before. But then he finds Nathlar and tells him that something must be done. So Nathlar goes back in to the house of mirrors to 'take care of' the cop; the cop pulls his gun on him, but Nathlar doesn't want to hurt him, he just can't control his Sith Lightning! He zaps him, but he wasn't going to kill him [didn't look like it, any way; he might have], so Edgar, the knives guy, comes in and ...saves the day? Well he kills the cop, anyway. That night, everyone welcomes Nathlar into the carnie family with hugs and dinner.

For the last bit, we see Hiro, in his hospital robe, peering into the diner window at Charlie! [I was a big fan of that character, and now I'm super excited!]

I liked how we understand the relationship between Edgar and Lydia. They are frequently in the same shot, and sometimes Edgar's face frames a shot of Lydia flirting with Sylar.

I did not like Samuel's line "Boys will be boys". UGH. Nathlar and Edgar spar, and Lydia asks Samuel if he's going to stop this, and that's his reply. And it's a stupid, sexist reply. Sorry. But it is.


Hiro The Magnificent!

House - Brave Heart

House - Season 6, Episode 6: "Brave Heart". Original Air Date: 19 Oct 09.

This episode was intense. The intro was crazy, with a police chase, some parkour, and some guy jumping off a roof. Turns out, that guy is convinced that he's going to die, since he's just turned forty and all his ancestors died of heart complications shortly after they reached that milestone. House is convinced there's nothing to find, and they look at the heart in every light possible, yet still find nothing, even when examining his son for genetic problems. So, House lets him go with some placebos.

Hours later, there's a knocking on Wilson and House's door: it's Foreman. Apparently, their guy collapsed, dead, hours after his discharge.

So they bring the body to Princeton Plainsboro's morgue and prepare to do an autopsy. In a cute, ironic twist, House picks up a saw and prepares to cut into the man's chest, but Foreman says, "You can't perform an autopsy without a license," and takes the saw. He does it himself, and they notice the way blood is coming out of the gash in the chest - it looks like the man is bleeding. But that would mean..... AND THEN THE MAN OPENS HIS EYES AND STARTS SCREAMING IN PAIN!!!

Yeah, crazy.

So the pressure's on to find out what's wrong with him. They put him on steroids for a genetic auto-immune [and lots of painkiller, btw], but nothing works. His new pain in his jaw is only getting worse, so bad that he pulls his own tooth out.

Meanwhile, Chase is struggling so hard with his decision regarding James Earl Jones. It's really hard to watch him, because he's a mess [naturally] and has no one to really turn to. At least when we see House like that, we know, oh, he's just a crazy dummie, he's always like that. It's different for Chase. You can also see how this plays itself out in his marriage. Which is crappy. And the priest at confession doesn't help.

House thinks he's going crazy again. He thinks he's hearing voices when he sleeps in Wilson's study [which used to be the bedroom]. He's not; it's really Wilson whispering to Amber at night. It's pretty sad, really. Like, boo hoo sad, not pathetic.

Finally, House figures it all out. The man has something of an aneurysm in his brain somewhere that's been growing and it causes pain and his heart to stop. They remove it and the one in the kid's head, and that story line is resolved, too.

All in all, a fun episode. It was shocking, which made it really fun to watch.

Sorry, my House stories are always smaller because I watch them live in the common room with a group of people; I watch the other shows either live on my own tv or on my computer the day after, so I take better notes.

Fringe - Dream Logic

Fringe - Season 2, Episode 5: "Dream Logic". Original Air Date: 15 Oct 09.

This is a long summary lol.

The episode starts with Olivia visiting Sam Weiss in the bowling alley and saying "Thank you". It's obvious that she's still very sad about Charlie. I remember a line that Peter said in the first season, and it's true: Olivia doesn't let anyone help her :(
But Sam says he wants to help her: "Hope you like red."

In Seattle, a man is heading to work, but he's freaking out because he sees everybody as zombies! Or something equally as scary. He gets to a meeting room [which reminds me of a meeting room in the first season, with the killer butterflies] to talk to his boss, who is apparently really angry. His eyes are moving super fast after he beats his boss's head in with his briefcase: REM.

Peter and Walter finally move into their own place, and Walter starts setting up his bed in the middle of the living room, which Peter thinks is weird. "Don't worry son, I know what you're thinking. I promise to wear my shorts to bed so that if you bring any young ladies home there won't be any embarrassing moments." LOL! Astrid comes over with some food for Walter, and also a case file for Peter. "Pack a bag, Walter, we're going to Seattle."

The team gets to the hospital where they're keeping the guy, Greg Leder, and the man who met them there informs them that they've "only just managed to wake him up," and that he's been sleeping heavily for several hours, "as if he was drugged." Walter informs Peter that he doesn't want to go in there. Olivia starts to question Greg: apparently he doesn't remember anything between parking his car after lunch and being restrained by coworkers on the meeting room floor. But he did think the office was infiltrated with demons. Suddenly, he starts seizing, or, what looks like seizing, and his heart rate is going through the roof; his hair starts turning silver, but he doesn't look old, and then he dies. What?

Walter starts to examine the body, but he notices that it's still warm - it should be considerably cooler by now. Walter tells a doctor that it appears the man died of acute exhaustion, which pretty much makes no sense, because, as far as we're aware, human beings can't die of that ["But it has been documented in rats," says Walter]. He fears that they've left the oven on at home, which Peter says is nonsense because they never even turned it on in the first place. Apparently this weird behaviour's been happening all day. The hospital and the city remind Walter of St. Clair's, so he wants to go home ASAP. Peter arranges it for him.
"No, at any given time there's a good chance that there's about a half a dozen psychotrophic drugs in his system, so drinking? It's not a good idea."

As they're sending Walter off, Olivia asks the doctor for a business card, which isn't weird, but she also asked a cab driver for one, too.

"The turbulence over Ohio was like being in the belly of a seizing whale. I screamed like a little girl!"

Back in the lab in Boston, it's nearly midnight, but Walter wants to get to work right away. Apparently they had no trouble bringing the body bag home, but their luggage was detained. Walter discovers nine surgical stitches on the back of the neck, right by the brain stem, which there should really be no reason for. "That's okay. In fact, you can assist us in removing his scalp!"

Olivia questions the wife of the dead man, and aside from being a little more tired than usual, nothing unusual was going on. But Peter thinks differently: he found a bunch of books about sleep in their living room, and the wife admits that Greg used to sleep walk, sometimes he even cooked entire meals in his sleep, but he was never violent, and he had been cured, having not had an episode in at least six months. Peter asks to see his sleep journal.

Peter brings the sleep journal over to Olivia's hotel room. Apparently the dead man had been averaging eight to ten hours of sleep [so how did he die of exhaustion?]. At least once a week, he dreamed of demons, but a couple of months ago, they stopped. At this point, we learn a little more of Peter's backstory, that he used to suffer from terrible nightmares as a child and that it was one of the only times Walter's presence was ever positive, but then Olivia gets a text, and apparently there's been another incident.

A woman died driving home, on the phone with her husband to let him know she'd be home soon, but she had said that she saw a monster! Walter's looking through Greg's brain and he finds what looks like a computer chip in the thalamus, and calls Peter, who finds the same sort of stitches on the woman's neck!

Nina Sharpe at Massive Dynamic sheds some light on the subject: it's a bio-chip, a BCI, a brain-computer interface, which works a lot like a pace-maker, regulating sleep cycles. Apparently a researcher back in Seattle has been working on similar projects, and he's a 'genius' named Laxmeesh Nayak.

Peter's hypothesis is that someone would want to target Nayak's work for purposes of mind control. Of course, we knew that from the beginning of the episode, and have been waiting patiently for the team to figure it out on their own. Walter says that it's possible, but modifying the chips would take a lot of trial and error - if only he had a live specimen, but he promised Peter no students... oh if only you could have seen the way he eyed that federal agent... As the federal agent is heading out, and Walter gets him to sniff something, and then he passes out. Heh.

Walter doesn't implant the chip into the agent's head, but he's figured out a different way to try the mind control process. He hooks himself up to the agent and starts making silly noises [*ahem*], and says "Either green unicorns just raced across the lab, or I accidentally took some LSD." But then he concludes it's not drugs, it's something else entirely.

Olivia finds Dr. Nayak and tells him about the two dead people. He confirms that they were patients of his and that they were implanted with these chips as part of a clinical trial, along with eighty other people. They head to his office for the names, only to find it ransacked. The main computer server is gone, and that's got all the data on it. Olivia takes his business card, too, by the way.

Nayak could only remember twenty-six patients, and he's going to remove all of their chips, but that still leaves fifty plus people still at risk.

Olivia's still upset about Charlie's death. Peter tells her that it's okay, not her fault, but she gets really upset and starts crying [and then runs away before she can be vulnerable in front of Peter].

We see a guy at a computer, and he looks a lot like Nayak's research assistant. He's working with another person - we don't see this one, but he's sitting in a chair, apparently drugged, and connected to machines. A woman in a restaurant starts hallucinating that a fellow cook is roasting severed limbs. She wields a knife and approaches him, but that is all we see.

Back at the clinic, Nayak is removing chips from many patients' brains, and Olivia gets a call from Sam Weiss. He's the one who asked her to collect business cards of everyone she saw wearing red. He has her circle one letter in every name [first and last], and then write down all those letters on a piece of paper, and unscramble them.
Broyles calls and he says the back-up server's been wiped, but it doesn't look like a hack. It would appear to be someone in the clinic.... hmm... But Nayak is sure that none of his employees would do something like that.

Apparently, there's been another attack: it's the woman in the restaurant. Peter and Olivia decide it's time to put in a public service announcement. That's when Nayak mentions that Zack Miller, the lab assistant, skipped work today and hasn't been answering his phone. The duo goes to his home and finds Zack, dead and seated inside a television cabinet. Dr. Nayak finds a letter at his work that says stop talking to the feds, or the same thing's going to happen to him as to Zack.

Nayak gives the note to Peter and Olivia, and they say they'll set him up with a protective detail. But after they leave, he dials a mysterious phone number and says "I told them" and asks to just be left alone.

Walter thinks the chips aren't mind control, they're transmitting data. They're "stealing dreams" - they're being sent before they can processed by the brain, which explains why the first victim stopped having dreams altogether, and then the brain never gets an opportunity to recharge. And these chips can also turn on a dream-like state in the wearer. But why? Well apparently it's quite the rush, so they must be dealing with an addict, or slave, or just general dream junkie.

Olivia's step-father was a drunk and she remembered there were two different personalities within him, like Jekyl & Hyde. She thinks that Nayak is both characters in this case. And it sort of looks like she'd be right. His druggie personality is what's causing all this trouble, and his sober personality seems to be innocent. We seem him lock into a pilot's consciousness at take-off, and the pilot starts freaking out, and prepares to fly them into a boat. The feds show up at Nayak's home, and Peter tries to shut down the programme, but to no avail. Finally, Olivia shoots the computer, and the pilot wakes up, saving the small plane and all its passengers. But when they look at Nayak, he's dead.

Peter thinks Nayak's final move here was his own way of putting a stop to things, because perhaps he wasn't aware of what his 'evil' self was doing, until now.

Olivia visits Charlie's grave and leaves flowers, and then gets back to her little word puzzle. It spells out "You're gonna be fine," the first thing Charlie ever told her. Spooky~

Peter has a dream: he's little, he sees his father and says, "Dad, what's wrong?" and then screams, but wakes up. There was a poster in his room that said "Challenger Mission 11 / June 28, 1984". Enjoy figuring that one out ;D [Hint: alternate universe Peter.]

Why do ALL Indian characters have to have Indian accents? >>;;

This episode had very little to do with the plot of the rest of the show, concering the ZFT and the soldiers and stuff. It was sort of refreshing, and very fun.


And the glyphs spell out: BETRAY

Heroes - "Hysterical Blindness".

Heroes - Season 4, Episode 4: "Hysterical Blindness". Original air date: 12 Oct 09.

The focus of this episode is mostly on Claire, Peter, the carnies, and Sylar.
Sylar can't remember anything at all, and he was picked up by the police. Eventually, he was ID'd as a murderer and he has to escape, which is when he discovers his powers. Claire has to deal with a stalkerish roommate, but Invisibitch, as Vigg calls sorority girl Rebecca, is making it seem a lot worse than it really is. Gretchen, on the other hand, isn't trying to kill any one who gets close to Claire, she's just crushing real hard. Turns out Rebecca is with the carnies, and she's trying to 'push' Claire to join them, but Sylar gets there first.
And then there's Peter and his deaf friend who sees music. Poor Peter: he's been feeling so estranged from everybody lately, and he's finally acting on some advice to reconnect with his family, but all his mother can think about is Nathlar [makes sense, since he's been missing and all, but still, poor Peter :( ]. He saves the deaf woman from being hit by a bus and absorbs her power, and that's when he can start to forge a connexion with her. I liked that story-line. It's cute, and I feel bad for the deaf woman, and I can't wait to see where that goes. The episode ends with Hiro showing up and then passing out in Peter's apartment! ><;; Claire said, "I have been chasing normal life forever" lol something tells me it won't be so normal for long [and by the end of the episode, I'm pretty much proven right].
I'm really excited for the Sylar story arch, and, well, all of them. I can't wait to see what happens to everybody, to meet new characters, and to see Invisibitch get hers [something tells me that will take a while]. This is the season we've been waiting for. No joke. Start watching.

**I'm naming the episode numbers by the "Chapter __" in the beginning of each episode. That two-hour season premiere screws it all up.