Heroes—Run!

Meredith, Claire's bio mom, talks to Nathan, who as we learned last week is Claire's bio dad. Nathan thinks the call involves blackmail and offers a hundred grand to cover it. Meredith accepts. Mr. Bennet brings Mrs. Bennet home supposedly from neurological tests. She's obviously having memory issues. Side effects from having her brain wiped so many times? Ya think?

Claire's dad busts her on the whole manatee thing and grounds her. She plays the "You're not my real father" card. Which is really cold, but given Claire's situation I suppose I can forgive her. I mean, after all, he's not just not her real dad, he's also mindwiping half his family on a regular basis. Not cool, Dad.

Claire goes to Meredith's house wanting to see her father. Meredith tells Claire her father doesn't really want to see her, but that she's entitled to half of the fifty grand her father has promised. Okay, I'm not great at math but I think that's wrong...

Nathan visits Meredith and gives her a check. Outside the window, Claire is listening to everything, and is hurt to discover Nathan really didn't want to see her. Nathan's pretty thrown by the whole thing and really not as much of an ass as I make it seem. Claire throws a rock at his car as he pulls away, but runs when this catches his attention.

At home, Claire finds her mother freaking out over Mr. Muggles. Her memory has been decimated--she can't even remember Claire. At this point, as bratty as Claire can be, I feel really sorry for her. Things just aren't going at all well in that family.

In Las Vegas, Hiro and Ando prepare to sneak into Linderman's hotel. Ando runs across a weeping dancer with cleavage that could destroy the world. Her name is Hope. Ando was looking for hope... ooo, coincidence! Ando jumps all over that. Ando seems to think a lot with the brain that is not inside his skull.

Hope tells them her boyfriend is beating her. Ando volunteers to help. Hiro isn't crazy about the idea, but finagles it into a bargain for her to introduce them to Linderman. They disguise themselves as room service, with the obligatory Hiro in the Breakfast Cart trick. Hiro wants to chicken out, but Ando keeps throwing his own words back at him to keep him in the game. I hate when people do that. Ando gets trapped in the hotel room, under the bed, when the boyfriend comes out of the shower.

Hiro overhears Hope on the phone talking about how she's set Hiro and Ando up. She clocks him in the head.

Ando brings Hope the bag. She distracts him with her deadly cleavage and some tonsil hockey and drags him off. Hiro, in the meantime, has been locked in a pantry. He's finally "rescued" by a man who indentifies himself as an officer of the State Gaming Commission, who looks like he's probably Hope's boyfriend.

Mohinder is calling folks on the list, trying to find somebody who won't hang up on him. Obviously people think he's a telemarketer. He finally gets a call back from Zane Taylor, and arranges to meet him. At Zane's house, there are lots of odd puddles on the floor. He's waiting for Mohinder to show up, and is very happy when he does. Except it's not Mohinder--it's Sylar. That can't be good.

Mohinder shows up at Zane's place and is met by Sylar claiming to be Zane. The ability he's absorbed from Zane involves liquefying things. Which explains the puddles on the floor. Also the dead body in the kitchen, since Sylar's snagged the power. Mohinder chats with Sylar about his ability. Sylar is very creepy with his discussion of inner peace and tranquility, and finally volunteers to help Mohinder in his search. Aww. They're gonna make a cute couple.

Jessica is hanging out with the family, pretending to be Niki and apparently freelancing as an assassin. Matt has landed a job as a bodyguard, and his first guard-ee proves to be Jessica's target.

The client, Malsky, is buying diamonds. Matt's telepathy clues him in to Jessica's presence and her agenda, enabling him to keep Malsky away from her. Jessica, though, is persistent. Matt is able to apprehend her, but Jessica escapes and flings Matt out a window. By the time Matt makes his way back into the building, Malsky is in two rather large pieces on the floor.

Matt tries to explain what happened to the cops who've arrived on the scene, but they don't seem very inclined to believe him. Following what he overheard from Malsky, he finds the hidden diamonds. He's about to turn them over when he "hears" the other cops mocking him with their mean mocky thoughts. He pockets them instead.

Jessica receives a package with information for another hit. This time she's supposed to kill Nathan.

And next week--a new catch phrase!!

The Dresden Files—Hair of the Dog

The episode opens with a man fleeing through a graveyard. He is violently attacked. Murphy calls Harry about a dead body found in the park, but it turns out not to be the man we saw in the teaser, but a woman. She's been partially scalped, and her upper canines have been extracted. Murphy connects the death to 7 similar murders, including one found in the river last week. There's no immediately cause of death, but silver iodide is found in her mouth and lungs, as if she inhaled it.

Harry, of course, is immediately clued in that the woman is a lycanthrope (werewolf in common parlance, though they never use that word in the episode and, if I recall correctly, Butcher never used that word in Fool Moon, either). The FBI moves in and takes the case over, pushing Murphy and Dresden both out of the way and threatening Dresden with jail time.

Dresden doesn't drop the case, though, because if he did we wouldn't have a show. Instead he focuses on the victim's roommate, Heather, and is able to put the pieces together as to what happened to her. But there's a twist he's not aware of--the hostile female FBI agent is also a lycanthrope, and her partner is killing lycanthropes in order to cure her of her affliction. Unfortunately, he's been bitten, too, as we saw in the teaser.

It seems like this would have been a much better pilot episode than "Birds of a Feather." Everybody has a general knowledge of werewolves, which would have made the story easily accessible to viewers unfamiliar with Dresden. In addition, this plot was largely adapted from Fool Moon, so it might have pleased established Dresden fans a bit better, as well. There's not quite as much background exposition in this episode as there was in "Birds of a Feather", but in this case I think that's a good thing, since the exposition in "Birds of a Feather" seemed to me to be more confusing than helpful.

In any case, this was a much stronger episode than the last two, with some genuine creepiness and strong emotion, and I hope the show continues with this trend.

Dresden Files Review Delayed

Due to my need to see the Dixie Chicks on the Grammys (even though I missed the Police and yes I am bitter about that), and an ongoing argument with my DVR, the Dresden Files review will be delayed, as my TV 2 DVR has decided to watch Masterpiece Theatre, and I don't have a TV hooked up to the TV 1 DVR, which is currently recording Dresden, but won't actually allow me to watch it.

Yes, it's all terribly complicated. My apologies.

Speculation—Summer Glau's role in Sarah Connor Chronicles

It's hit the internet over the last few days that Summer Glau (Firefly) is now attached to Sarah Connor Chronicles, a series based on the Terminator movie franchise slated to show up on Fox this fall. It's set after the events of Terminator 2 and before Terminator 3. In this article from Cinematical, it's speculated that Summer will play a Terminator.

THE FOLLOWING IS MORE SPECULATION WHICH MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS IF I'M RIGHT...

I've just read some of the casting sides (I got 'em legitimate-like, so don't be looking at me that way), and I'd say this is a pretty fair guess. There's a character named Cameron who has taken on the role of guardian for John Connor, and she's a cybernetic type. Reading her scenes, it's easy to see Summer in that role, so I'm going to put my money on that.