Thursday, March 6, 2014

'Almost Human' Season 1 Finale GifTweetCap: Beware the 'Straw Man'

Most of the following gifs can be found on this Tumblr post. "Straw Man," the Season 1 finale of Almost Human, is packed with backstory. We finally learn a bit more about Kennex (Karl Urban)! Even better than the backstory, however, is the growing "robromance" between Dorian (Michael Ealy) and Kennex. This episode really took it to a new level. Some fans even joined in for a tweetout before the show, causing the hashtag #AlmostHumanLives to trend in the USA! Want to ensure its renewal? Join Almost Humaniacs on Facebook for more info.
The episode begins with homeless people waiting in line for pills from a vending machine. One poor girl (Christie Burke) is tormented by a meanie (Mik Byskov), and a guy in a wheelchair comes to her rescue before she gets her pill.
The shelter is full, so Wheelchair Man offers to show her a better shelter out of the kindness of his heart. Then he stabs her in the wrist with a drug-ring (as in, a ring with a teeny needle full of drugs on it), stands up, and uses his wheelchair to take her to his shady-looking van.
Meanwhile, Dorian's contract is up for renewal, so Rudy (Mackenzie Crook), Maldonado (Lili Taylor), Kennex and Dorian are all being questioned to determine whether he should continue in the field. They all have nice things to say, including Rudy, who suggests that he would trust Dorian to watch his child... more than he would trust himself... if he had a child... except he's single... but if he found the right one... not that the interviewer he happened to gesture toward (Graeme Duffy) is the one, but... well, he could be!
When the interviews are finished, Kennex begins freaking Dorian out by telling him that everything the interviewers did is outside the norm. Then, he informs Dorian that he told them basically all of the bad things Dorian has ever done, which causes Dorian to become highly apologetic. Of course, it's all a prank. Kennex wouldn't tell them all that, silly "D"!
Later, the girl who had been put in the van shows up dead -- and filled with straw. Kennex does the honors of cutting open the stitches to reveal the straw.
Kennex recognizes the MO (modus operandi, in case you were wondering). His father had worked the same type of case about 10 years earlier, and Michael Costa (William 'Big Sleeps' Stewart), the man accused of the crime, was sentenced to life in prison and put on "the Red List" for psychopathic tendencies based on a brain scan.
Kennex and Dorian visit Costa in prison, and he insists that he's innocent. He also says that "Kennex" (as in, John's father, Edward, not knowing that John is his son) believed him, because he had found proof of his innocence... then he died two weeks later. Coincidence? Well, Edward Kennex was also concerned about crooked cops.
Meanwhile, Straw Wheelchair Man picks up another victim (Rami Kahlon).
When Kennex attempts to access his dad's old case files, he's presented with an access denied error. The problem is that his father had been under investigation for stealing from the evidence locker when he died. He tells Maldonado about the error, and she gets him access. Dorian doesn't seem very pleased when Kennex requests that Dorian go see Rudy while he checks his dad's files alone.
Kennex Sr.'s files prove that he believed in Costa's innocence, and they also contain photos of victims with their feet circled.
When Dorian arrives at Rudy's lab, Rudy shares an odd discovery: there was nothing at all under the victims' fingernails, which is impossible to pull off, even with a good cleaning.
Dorian asks whether Rudy has heard anything about Dorian being renewed, and Rudy says that everything should be fine, minus one hiccup: he suggested that he would want Dorian to have his baby, and they may have misunderstood him. Ya think?
His suggestion to Dorian to ensure a better chance of renewal is to act like an MX, since they are so popular. What are you thinking, Rudy?!
When Kennex arrives, he shares the fact that his father had circled the feet of the victims, and asks Dorian if he sees any similarities. Dorian says the victim is flat footed, which causes Rudy's brain to explode. He sets up a biological printer, then explains how printed bodies would have settled in their standing positions, creating flat feet. Organs cannot be printed properly, however, so the killer would have had to fill the printed bodies with straw to hide the fact that they weren't the real live victims. Rudy then prints out a cupcake for his missed birthday.
The gang realizes that the killer must be keeping the victims alive for some nefarious reason, and printing copies of them so everyone will think they're dead, and will stop looking for them.
The gang finds the latest printed copy of the newest victim, and Kennex notices a pinprick on on her finger (the skin is a perfect replica of the original). Dorian says that the previous victim also had a pinprick, and suggests it came from a pill machine. Pill machines are located next to shelters, so Maldonado sends MXs to all shelters but two -- the two where Kennex and Dorian, and Det. Paul (Michael Irby) will be.
As Paul watches out for the killer, whom they later learn is named Glen Dunbar, he befriends a homeless guy (Alex Barima) over a few "your mom" jokes, and shares some Bitcoins with him. Awww... Paul's not an asshat after all!
While Dorian and Kennex lookout for Glen, Dorian decides to sing a little Lionel Richie. The pitchy tune gives Kennex a headache. When Dorian asks whether Kennex's dad was capable of stealing evidence, John tells a story detailing how his dad was one of the most honest cops in the department: that was the reason John became a cop.
The plan works, and Glen is lured away from the MX-infested shelters. Unfortunately, Paul sees something fishy when it's already too late: the sunglasses of his new buddy are on the ground, and the shady van is driving away!
They track the van, and find Paul's buddy unconscious but still alive. Inside the nearby warehouse, they find a much less living victim who looks as if he's been there for a very longer time. The two women taken recently are both found alive.
The MXs carry off the living victims, while Dorian takes off to meet a few others after some shots are fired in their location. Dorian finds Glen apparently dead, but it's just a printed decoy of him.
Of course, Kennex stays behind by himself to look through the darkest, most eerie corners of the warehouse for evidence. Glen surprises him, knocks him around and begins strangling him. Kennex sure gets choked out a lot. It must be because of his perfect choke-face. A stab to Glen's shoulder has little effect, but is enough to get thrown across the room again, so Kennex can fire a bunch of holes into him, killing him. Buh-bye.
Turns out Glen is a cyborg, and he was kidnapping people to test out his tech improvements. When John's dad had deduced that Glen had stolen a bio printer from evidence with the help of a cop, Glen had him killed, then killed the dirty cop a week later. So, in solving this case, Kennex cleared his dad's name, saved three victims before they died, and helped release an innocent man from prison.
Later, Dorian takes Rudy's advice, walking and talking like an MX in his next meeting.
But then the reviewer (Ben Wilkinson) informs Dorian that he's only there to let Dorian know that he's been renewed*, and that Kennex was the reason. Dorian gets a little teary-eyed knowing that Kennex have him such a glowing review*.
*Dorian is "almost human."
Dorian uses Kennex's locator chip to find him at his favorite place: a noodle restaurant. He then gives John a much improved synthetic leg to replace his old one, and to thank him for causing his contract to be renewed.
After such a heartfelt "thank you" from John, Dorian begins full-on crying his little synthetic eyes out. This makes Kennex highly uncomfortable, which is utterly hilarious. But it's also fun to revise history just a bit to make the situation seem slightly different:
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Monday, March 3, 2014

'Person of Interest' GifTweetCap: More Villains Means More Fun

The gifs on this recap are available on this Tumblr post. Please scroll to the bottom if you'd like to help me ensure renewal for one of my favorite shows! Person of Interest introduces yet another recurring bad guy in the episode "Last Call." Somehow, we will never tire of these horrible people, because they create so much intrigue for the show… and the writers always manage to make each one scarier than the last.

The episode begins with Finch (Michael Emerson) on the phone... taking 911 calls. His first call sounds as if it's a serious situation, but it turns out to be a squirrel hijacking.
He could use some help figuring out why the gang's latest number is Sandra Nicholson (Melissa Sagemiller), a supervisor of trainees at a 911 call center, but Fusco (Kevin Chapman) isn't much help. After arresting Simmons, he is now the hero of the department, and this makes him snippy with all the rookies who want his help.
Finch tells Fusco that he deserves the attention, and should be proud of being a mentor. After the call, Fusco decides to mentor the rookie (Gavin Stenhouse) he dismissed earlier.
Later, a trainee takes serious call concerning a child abduction of a boy named Aaron (Julian Shatkin), and Sandra takes it over. Finch, Reese (James Caviezel), and Shaw (Sarah Shahi) are all listening in on Sandra and each other, so Reese and Shaw take off right away to try to save the kid before the kidnappers find him hiding in his closet. Unfortunately, the kidnappers find him before they arrive.
It turns out that the kidnappers are working for a man who is targeting Sandra. It's all a ploy to force her into deleting a day's worth of 911 calls from the previous day. If she doesn't do it, the man who owns the creepy voice on the other end of the line will have Aaron murdered.
When Sandra writes down "HELP ME" in an area with no surveillance, Mr. Mysterious Voice sees her. He seems to have been able to hack into everything, and is able to see everyone.
All attempts to find Mr. Mysterious Voice fail. When he is tracked to a limo, Shaw stops it and looks inside. Foiled again!
Finch asks Shaw to interrogate the driver (Tommy Walker) of the limo to get a description of the man who hired him. She does so gladly, and his description sounds like someone with Templarios -- a kidnapping ring for the Mexican cartel.
The only thing our mysterious bad guy is unable to do himself is actually delete the calls from the previous day, because they have to be deleted from one specific terminal. But Sandra can't just delete everything from an entire day without access to a special admin code. She needs to steal a key fob in order to get the code.
Before Sandra leaves to get the key fob, Finch walks in behind her, and informs her that the bad guy has implanted a small camera on her headset. That is how he is able to see everything. She has to be careful not to look at Finch. But when she returns to the room, she is flustered thinking about what she has done, and accidentally looks at Finch!
Mr. Mysterious Voice is furious when he sees that someone is helping her, and sets off a bomb nearby to prove he's serious. The next bomb is attached to Aaron.
Meanwhile, Finch had enlisted Fusco to help find the one 911 call that Mr. Mysterious Voice must be targeting. He eventually finds it before their time is up, and it just so happens that the rookie's case with which he decided to help is related to Finch's case!
Fusco's case involves the murder of a young woman who slept with Ron Kincaid (David Andrew MacDonald), the CFO of a private equity firm, so he decided to kill her to keep it quiet. Fusco explains to them how a boy's life is in danger because of all this. Well, his wife Gina (Kathleen McNenny), the CEO, is just as sleazy, because she's the one who hired someone to erase the evidence. Stupidly, she has no real idea of who she hired, and no way to stop them.
Fortunately, Mr. Mysterious Voice hears of their confession, and stops Sandra from deleting the files right before she presses the button. But now he's going to kill Aaron and her anyway to keep the whole situation under wraps. At least Fusco bought them some time: 15 minutes, that is.
Reese locates the Templarios members, and attempts to beat out some information about their boss. Shaw seems upset that he did all the fun work before she arrives.
Well, he left the best for last. The apparent boss (Omar Gonzalez) is untouched, but he isn't Mr. Mysterious Voice. He was merely hired by Mr. Mysterious Voice. Shaw gets to have her fun on him with a pair of pliers. Reese and Shaw arrive at Aaron's location after Shaw "managed to pry it out" of the Templario guy.
There are more Templarios lying in wait with Aaron, so Reese sends up one of his suits to terrify them.
While Shaw is kneecapping the Templarios and Reese is disarming the bomb attached to Aaron -- finishing the job with the obligatory 2 seconds to spare -- Finch and Sandra are being shot at after an evacuation caused by a blackout set in motion by Mr. Mysterious Voice. Finch sets up a trap, threatening to throw a live wire into the large puddle of water in which the bad guy is standing. But of course, he is not Mr. Mysterious Voice either, but only working for him -- just like everyone else we lay eyes on in the episode.
Finch later gets a call from one of the phones Mr. Mysterious Voice left for the team, and informs him that he no longer has a need to harm Aaron or Sandra. He simply informs Finch that he'll "be seeing" him. What a round-about way of accomplishing nothing! Perhaps his goal from the beginning was to bring out Finch, and get the Templarios out of his way for some other purpose. Maybe he's just sick and disturbed. Who knows?

Help me save one of the best shows on TV with a tweet (or five)!

Skip to the end if you don't want to hear the story. :) I have been writing about several shows for several years now. I've written about Person of Interest since about the second half of Season 1. In fact, writing about Person of Interest was one of my first three weekly writing assignments back when I was writing for Yahoo! TV.

Well, in the last few months since I've moved all of the recaps to my blog so I could have more flexibility with creating animated gifs and quoting tweets, I've begun writing about another new favorite show. Almost Human is a sci-fi show that two awesome things in common with Person of Interest: the producer J. J. Abrams, and a wonderful and hilarious bromance (click the link for an example).

Even if you are not a fan, or have never heard of the show, please consider helping me with one last push for renewal tonight, right before and during the season finale episode, just because it is the main show that inspires me to write these recaps in the first place. I really really really want it to be renewed!

So, this is what we are doing: All you have to do is tweet #AlmostHumanLives one or more times, beginning at 7pm EST, Monday, March 3rd – one hour before Almost Human airs. Please DO NOT use #AlmostHumanLives before the designated time. You can find more information here. If you are a fan, or this sounds like a show you may want to watch, check out my latest gif-tweet-cap of last week's episode, and scroll to the bottom for more information about what else you can do. You can also live tweet tonight's episode for a chance to be quoted in my finale recap. Thanks!
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