Big Orange Michael

Heroes: Company Man
A chance of pace episode for Heroes and one that is one-hundred percent successful.

The past few weeks, the storylines of the show have pared down, focusing on two to three main plotlines per episode. This week, the focus goes even narrower and we spend an entire hour focusing on the character of Mr. Bennett.

I think if you're going to do an episode like this, doing it at this point in the series is a good idea. Eighteen episodes in we still have enough questions about Bennett as a character to make an episode like this work better. I found myself comparing it to the X-Files attempts in later seasons to give some type of human edge, justification and understanding to the Cigarette Smoking Man. It was good but by the time they did it, we were all so used to accepting him as a villian and an obstacle to the work Mulder and Scully were doing that to humanize him only watered him down.

With Bennett, we don't have that problem. Instead, we get a story that explores a man who is comfortable in the moral gray areas. (Interesting then that the flashbacks of the past sixteen years were done in black and white...nice choice). He is willing to take out his best friend and partner and kill him for breaking the rules, but he breaks them himself to protect the daughter he (intially) reluctantly adopted. I really liked seeing the conflict between his professional and private lives and the lines he drew. Even in the end, he did what he had to in order to protect Claire--and it does leave me wondering just how much of his memory of her did he have erased. Is Claire now truly alone? Did he have the Hatian erase everything about Claire from his mind? Will he now see her as nothing more than another person to be hunted down and brought in?

Along the way, we had a few interesting surprises. The biggest being that somehow George Takai is invovled the Company. So, a few weeks ago when he told Hiro he wanted him (Hiro) to assume control of the company, did Takai mean the Company?

I loved the revelation that Takai was part of it. First of all, I never saw it coming. And second of all, I like that it keeps Takai in the mix for the rest of the show. I really liked his character.

Meanwhile, we learned that Claude was involved in the Company long before Bennett came on-board. Better yet, the two worked together for a couple of years before Bennett was ordered to eliminate Claude. Suddenly, we see why Claude was so paranoid. And, once again, Christopher Eccleston was fantastic as Claude. Move heaven and earth but make him a regular next season....that's all I'm saying.

There was so much good to this story and so little not so good. In fact, I can't think of one thing that I didn't like about the episode, except maybe that everyone near Ted should have severe radiation posioning. But then again, this is a comic-book brought to life and such real-world rules don't always apply.

And who is Eric Roberts? Where does he fit in?

We got answers...but then we got more questions. And somehow, the show really has my interest.

24: Day Six, 4 - 5 p.m.
So, in the two years since we last saw him, Charles Logan has found religion. I found that kind of an intersting development in the storyline. I'd be interested to find out how Logan got to this point in his life--did he get so low that he literally had no where else to go?

Meanwhile, the wheels are turning super slow. Logan has a link to the Gredenko. And Gredenko is about two-hours away from having the bombs ready to deploy. He's got some kind of delivery system that he stole from somewhere...I'd have thought CTU would be onto that by now. It seems it wouldn't take long for them to put together that bad guys has bombs plus delivery system stolen might be connected. In a way, it reminded me a lot of season four when the villain launched missiles late in the day and a lot of time was spent wondering if they'd be intercepted. Are we headed for a repeat here?

I can see how it would be possible since this is a season of greatest hits....

Back at CTU, it almost feels like we're trying to manufacture some interest in these people. Something has been off with Chloe all year and it seems the only person I care about is Morris. (Well, I care about Nadia..but that's all from the she's pleasing on the eyes category). Morris is conflicted and having a lot of problems..of course having your ex-wife burst in on you in a private moment like that would be reason enough I expect. I did find it a bit of a stretch that we'd have Morris's former sponsor on--seems like they were trying to find a way to work in the voice of Bart Simpson to the show. (That's who it was on the other end of the phone in case you were wondering).

And back at the presidential bunker, no one gets suspicious that the Biscuit is missing.

OK, I've got to ask--why did Chad Lowe's character set off the bomb before the broadcast went live? Did he not know it was a rehearsal? I got the impression the conspriators wanted to set the bomb off on live TV to shift blame to Aziz. But from the impression I got, it was only the dress rehearsal and not the actual broadcast. And why start off right away at the start of the broadcast? Wouldn't you give the TV broadcast time to get going, so that everyone would know who was getting blown up? It seems to me that the situation was forced forward to give us a cliffhanger. Or am I missing something?

And then there's Jack....with his weird hands on the face of Marilyn. That just gets weirder every time I see it. Again, the timeline of their backstory doesn't make much sense....

Anyway, it seems like maybe the gears are finally starting to move. Maybe we're on the upturn. I certainly hope so.

Labels: 24, heroes, tv shows