Showing posts with label episode 9. Show all posts
Showing posts with label episode 9. Show all posts

Thursday, February 6, 2014

'Almost Human' GifTweetCap: XRN vs DRN

You can find most of the gifs from this recap on this Tumblr post. "Unbound" marks the first Almost Human episode that is completely devoid of Kennex-Dorian car-ride-banter hilarity. Instead, Rudy offers up all the humor required for an episode of the series, even though the banter is sorely missed. There are still some nice moments between the pair, and the episode is a fantastic break from the normal routine. Still, I expect the show to get back to hilariously awkward and inappropriate homosexual innuendo next week. By the way, I've gotten friends who are not sci-fi fans to watch expressly for the banter and comedic moments. So, tell your friends to watch and live tweet! You never know when you may be quoted in a recap!

The episode opens with children taking a tour of the precinct. Dorian (Michael Ealy) attempts to take the child-friendly route, while Kennex (Karl Urban) does his best to terrify them to the point of puking. --Since barf makes me barf, I've left that part out of the gif.
Meanwhile, a cyclops android steals a purse, then kills the victim for apparently no reason. A slew of MXs "kill" the thing, then place it in evidence lockup. What they fail to realize is that the bot is still kickin'. They merely placed it right where it was told to be: the same location as the mysterious head glimpsed in the pilot episode.
Mr. Cyclops turns itself back on, removes it's own head, then replaces it with the female head already in lockup.
Rudy (Mackenzie Crook) finds that the cyclops head is highly complex, and programmed by someone who really knows what they are doing.
The new-headed machine, known as Danica (Gina Carano), decides to take a cab ride. Here's a word of caution: never stop for a gorgeous woman dressed in all-black ninja military gear and guns. She will blow your head off and stuff you in your own trunk.
When Kennex sees a photo of the stolen head, he recognizes it immediately. In fact, the entire precinct knows about it, except Dorian. That's because Danica, an XRN model similar to the DRNs, was the department's biggest failure, and they buried information in a place where even Dorian can't find the truth with is genius noggin. Back when the DRNs had been taken offline, one Danica XRN was created. She went all loony and killed a large number of cops and government bigwigs over a period of three days, until Kennex finally helped to destroy the body. The gang decide that the head must be what the Insyndicate had been looking for when they broke in during the "Pilot" episode.
Apparently, Danica is out of charge, without a USB plug. She decides to replace her body with a sexbot. --Initially, I was fearful that the episode would to devolve into a silly Xena-like escapade, until she finally put her clothes back on. Hopefully, the hot bot-bod pulled in some male viewers.
Danica takes the body from the workplace of a Dr. Nigel Vaughn (John Larroquette). When Nigel enters, she knocks him out. Dorian and Kennex investigate, but Dorian seems to know the doctor. Kennex is a bit confused by the display of affection he witnesses, until Dorian explains that Nigel is his creator.
Meanwhile, Danica continues her rampage, seemingly killing and mutilating people for no reason. That includes the removal of a lab tech's eye.
Dorian and Kennex take the doctor to Rudy's lab, where Rudy uncomfortably bows before his idol.
While at the lab, Nigel presents the gang with his most wonderful creation: the "synthetic soul" shared by the XRN and the DRNs. When the DRNs suddenly began to fail, they were all decommissioned. Nigel's company, Lumacorp, went from the most powerful in the world to a pile of scrap. Nigel claims to have changed nothing when creating the Danica XRN, but he was in a different place: desperate to save his company, and his good name.
Despite having the same "soul," Danica is nothing like Dorian. She even considers killing a mother (Kirsten Robek) and daughter (Bailey Herbert)... that is, until she receives a compliment.
Nigel uses one of the synthetic souls to track Danica, then fashions a big needle that is supposed to shut her down when stabbed in the back of her neck.
Danica uses the eyeball she stole to break into Nigel's old lab and kill more people, and steal 500 processing cores, which can power one android each. She then shoots up a fundraising event full of politicians. The target seems to be Councilman James Hart (Leon Hanson), who had pushed for the DRNs to be decommissioned, causing the downfall of LumaCorp. Kennex jumps out, and stabs her as directed, but it doesn't work.
Danica then proceeds to throw Kennex around like a rag doll.
Dorian does a bit better, but still gets kicked into a pillar, and impaled with some rebar.
Kennex takes another try, getting nearly choked to death, then head-butted. I'll look past the fact that she could have killed him instantly by crushing his neck, mainly because the next part is so cool:
We don't have to worry about Danica anymore: she's now a pile of goo:
Unfortunately, there may be many more Danicas to come. Nigel planned the whole thing. He sent the cyclops to steal Danica's head, then sent Danica to steal the processing cores. Killing James Hart would have simply been a bonus, because Nigel took off with the synthetic souls and processing cores while the cops were trying to kill Danica again.
"The wall" had been mentioned once before in a previous episode, and it is referenced again in this one. Nigel takes his goods, and scales the wall with help from his androids (previous gif). Apparently, he's got to be crazy to go to the other side, but he'll also have a private place to create his android army without interference. In this image, you can see the wall near the top. It's basically the line of demarcation between beautiful shiny buildings and old brown buildings.
Also, these tulips were undoubtedly created to honor the previous effort of J.H. Wyman and J.J. Abrams: Fringe.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Monday, January 6, 2014

'Grimm' GifTweetCap: Russian Wesen and Revenge!

"Grimm" begins a new Juliette-centered story arc in the episode "Red Menace," but it's a very small part of the episode. The main plot is all about the Wesen-monster-of-the-week, who may or may not be so monstrous.
The episode begins with a nod to the pilot: a girl in red, who looks as if she's about to get dead via a mysterious man in a hoodie. It's not exactly the same, but the "Li'l Red Riding Hood" (The Brooke) music playing over the opening certainly brings back memories. The hoodie guy is just Nick (David Giuntoli), doing some heavy exercising without losing his breath or sweating. When are we going to learn what's going on with zombie-Nick?
Meanwhile, a seemingly wonderful man, Boris (Mark Ivanir), heals a young girl in pain with cancer. He appears to be a very special kind of green healing Wesen, which we later find is called a Koschie Wesen.
Later, sweet ol' Boris is attacked by a man named Alex Renko (Vladimir Tevlovski) in a store room while at an event in his honor. He is stabbed with scissors, but is able to grab Renko by the wrists and send him some green pulses. In this case, the healer uses his powers to harm. He throws Renko out the window, but the reverse-healing is not finished.
The infection sent to Renko through Boris's green vein-pulses is radiation poisoning. Renko speaks with an unknown person on the phone, lamenting the fact that he failed to kill Boris. After his little phone conversation, he decides to pull out one of his teeth, solely for the purpose of grossing us out.
The gang finds another dead man in the freezer at the same restaurant where Boris's event was held. Renko had killed him before attacking Boris, but they don't know where Renko is, so they go speak with Boris. Renard (Sasha Roiz), Hank (Russell Hornsby), and Nick watch as Boris heals someone, but only Nick can see that he's Wesen. Later, Renard, who's back from "vacation," learns that Boris used to be an assassin. He also knows that Grigori Rasputin was also a Koschie Wesen.

Nick, Wu (Reggie Lee) and Hank show up to check out Renko's apparently dead (and incredibly disgusting) pustule-ridden body lying in the tub. Oops! He's not dead yet! He jumps out of the tub and grabs Hank, barfing some oozy vomit in a nice shade of black right on Hank's coat.
Because of the radiation in the room, Hank, Nick and Wu are forced to take a shower. Nick almost looks as if he's in a GQ ad, and Hank looks a bit touchy-feely... with himself.
All of their clothing must be confiscated and burned, so the men are forced to wear their blue clean-room-type suits and booties. Anyone who has ever seen Ghostbusters gets the reference right away, although they add a comment from someone to the side for good measure: "Who ya gonna call?"
Boris enjoys sleeping around with his #HotMaid Larissa (Alicia Lagano), even while his wife Olga (Alexsandra Kaniak) is around. The next time he does, however, Larissa tries to kill him with poisoned Vodka. She becomes frustrated when he won't die (because he can heal himself), leaving Boris entirely confused... until she confesses that she only got close to him so she could pay him back for murdering her father, back when Boris was an assassin.
Boris insists that he has changed, but she runs off down the stairs. Our gang of cops show up just in time to see it all go down. The wife is a boar-like Malin Fatal Wesen, and rips into Larissa's throat for attempting to kill Boris. Boris, who dies a little each time he heals someone, makes the ultimate sacrifice in doing one more healing on Larissa, proving that he is truly reformed. But that is his final act, and he dies by Larissa's side.
Meanwhile, a new story arc begins when Juliette's (Bitsie Tulloch) battered-wife friend Alicia (Angela Gots) calls, and Juliette offers to let her stay in her home. While Juliette is busy, Nick notices that Alicia just happens to be a Fuchsbau Wesen. Her cruel husband Joe calls their house in search of her, but they deny she's there. Little do they know, he's staking out the place, and he's a Klaustreich Wesen to boot! Klaustreich are alley-cat-like jerks of the Wesen community. What happens next is left for next week.
Oh yeah, Hank finally looked for some action in the form of his beautiful physical therapist Zuri (Sharon Leal). He's just finishing up healing from his Achilles tear, which he got zip-lining on vacation a while back, and decides to "celebrate" his recovery with her. Unfortunately, she doesn't go out with patients. Poor Hank never gets the girl! Or any girl, for that matter!
GRIMM -- "Red Menace" Episode 309
(Photo by: Scott Green/NBC),
Airdate: Friday, January 3 on NBC (9-10 p.m. ET)
© NBC Universal, Inc.
Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, December 5, 2013

'Elementary' GifTweetCap: Sherlock's Actions are 'On the Line'

Quick note: I've had this almost finished for over a week, but got sidelined by Yahoo! TV telling me they'd begin publishing the recaps, then failing to review them, then by the holidays. Please enjoy this belated recap.

 "Elementary" changed things up this week, by going with a cat and mouse plot over the usual whodunit plot line in the episode "On the Line." By all accounts, the tweak was a huge success, with many fans exclaiming that this was their favorite episode of the season.

First off, we have what initially seems to be an appetizer of Arthur Conan Doyle canon: a woman named Samantha Wabash commits suicide by gun on a bridge while framing a man named Lucas Bundsch, whom she believes had killed her sister Ally six years earlier. Sherlock is called to the scene for a quick look at what the cops believe to be a suicide, and quickly finds the truth.
This has happened before. Sherlock has solved a small case in the first five minutes of the episode on several occasions, before moving on to a bigger case. This time is different. The man being framed for the crime had already agreed to a polygraph test to clear his name, and this is where it gets interesting. Sherlock notices that the man bites his tongue three different times during the polygraph, so Sherlock goes in to ask one more question: "Did you kill Ally Wabash?" With the answer, and the sensation of antiperspirant deodorant as he shakes Lucas's hand, Sherlock believes they have a serial killer on their hands. 
The original investigator on Ally's case, Det. Coventry, believes that Samantha was nuts for believing that Lucas had anything to do with her sister's murder, and shows Sherlock and Watson a photo of Ally calling Samantha from a payphone the day after her abduction. Sherlock isn't phased, and berates Coventry in front of the other cops in the station for doing a sloppy job.
Later, Lucas shows up at Sherlock's home. Coventry gave him Sherlock's address! Sherlock grabs a knife as he invites the suspected serial killer into his home, then proceeds to tell him what he and Watson have found this far: Lucas had kidnapped Ally and kept her somewhere for two weeks before killing her. When she called her sister from the phone, she was wearing a fake bomb that she thought was real.
Lucas gives Sherlock a veiled threat, saying that Samantha ruined her own life by obsessing over him, and Sherlock should not make the same mistake. Later, Lucas dupes Sherlock and Watson by making them believe that he is about to murder someone who wants to give them more information about the case, only to find that the original call had been faked. 
Lucas's antics send Sherlock over the edge, causing Shetlock to show up at Lucas's studio to have some words with him. Instead, Lucas goads Sherlock into punching him out (resulting in a broken finger), which forces Gregson to kick him off the case (which was also exactly what Coventry had wanted). Lucas also takes out a restraining order. 
Lucas abducts another girl, and calls Sherlock and Watson to the scene using the same fake phone number he had tricked them with earlier. Sherlock has had enough, and decides to frame Lucas, just as Samantha had tried to do when she committed suicide. Before jumping in on the frame job, Watson gives Sherlock an idea of where to look for the abducted woman.
Sherlock finds that Lucas submitted smaller square footage for a storage closet in his sound-proof studio than it had originally been built with. Gregson gets around the restraining order with a warrant, and Sherlock is the one to pull the abducted woman from Lucas's dungeon.

There's also a surprise inside: a woman who had been abducted earlier is also inside. Watson had interviewed the husband earlier, and he is both surprised and immensely relieved to find that his wife has been found.
Meanwhile, Sherlock and Watson have a spat because Sherlock gets so snarky with other people who are on the same side, leading to problems such as having a serial killer sent to their home and getting kicked off cases. Sherlock absolutely does not agree, and frustratingly throws out a childish piece of paper depicting Sherlock and Watson relieving themselves, which had been posted at the police station.
Later, Sherlock's snarkiness seems to pay off somewhat (at least for viewers) when Coventry's (or "Detective Hip-flask," as Sherlock calls him) true nature is revealed as he seems annoyed that a serial killer has been captured with Sherlock's help, just because he was wrong about the case.
At the end if the episode, Sherlock tells Watson how special she is to him, but that is the only reason he is nice to her. He explains that he is not a nice guy by nature, and that is usually an advantage for him rather than a deficit. Watson ominously informs him that a person can't live with that sort of attitude forever, and Sherlock simply responds, "to thine own self, Watson."



Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)