Hi everyone!
Wow. IM is one of the few shows out there that can deliver an amazingly wonderful comedic episode one week...then turn around and deliver an amazingly wonderful dramatic episode the next! God I love this show!
And with that, welcome to my dorky little review of Brother’s Keeper. As always this contains HUGE HONKIN’ spoilers for that eppy, and all ideas are my own. I didn’t get anyone’s RNA to get ideas from.
Overall:
I hate to say it, but I wish Kevin had gone quicksilver mad while in Darien’s body. Perhaps that would have convinced him to tell Claire how to remove it. Because let’s face it, Kevin just did an awful thing to his brother. Hobbes says at the end that Kevin did it out of love, implying back to Darien’s first quote "Anything done out of love is beyond good and evil"...but that doesn’t make it right! He knew how badly Darien wanted that gland out, but he left it in after finding out how much Darien has changed for the better over the last year. Once again Kevin has made decisions affecting Darien’s life because he feels he knows better how to run that life.
To truly love someone is to let them make their own mistakes, to live their own life. How much more wonderful would it have been for both brothers if Kevin had told Claire how to remove then gland, then wrote a letter to Darien pleading not to have it taken out yet...to stay with the Agency and continue on the road to become a better man then he was...of course it makes sense for Kevin to do what he did. He’s been one of the first in a long line of people who have tried to force Darien into "doing the right thing" for his own good. Kevin’s betrayal hurts so much because it’s very true to real life. I just hope one of these days Darien actually gets to make a choice about his own life...perhaps when everyone stops pushing he’ll walk down the right road on his own.
And with that rant out of the way...
The Quotes:
They come thick and fast this week! Thomas Mann, some advice from Hobbes’ shrinks, Occam’s Razor (what Rendell quoted about "eliminate the improbable and whatever is left that’s not impossible is the truth"), James Bevel, and Leonardo da Vinci.
The Good:
-Gotta start by applauding Vince, Paul and Shannon for a great job in this eppy! Watching the three of them work together is always a joy, and this week gives some of the best performances yet with some very hard material! Extra applause to Vince who gets the mind-blowing task of being two people in one episode and creating both believably, and he does an excellent job!
-Great Scene 1: Right off the bat we’re treated to the storm before the calm. For the first minute or so we’re attacked with Darien already QSM and taking it out on Hobbes, the Keeper, and the Keep. It’s frantic, it’s nuts, it’s loud....and then Darien gets the counteragent and things suddenly get very quiet. The background music turns off, there are long moments of silence as Darien expresses the problem with him going QSM as becoming routine, and everyone becomes subdued. It’s a wonderful dichotomy, and a powerful way to open an episode!
-Talk about hitting a guy when he’s down! The Official really didn’t need to throw Darien’s own words at him to make a point about not going far. Even Hobbes and Claire are surprised and horrified as they both turn to look at the Official!
-"Leave it to you to out-depress a cemetery."
-You can almost see the lightbulb go off over Darien’s head when Hobbes’ remark sparks the idea.
-Gotta love the Official looking so upset and glaring when Eberts lets it slip about the stored RNA.
-Great Scene 2: Darien, soaked, ambushes Claire, who becomes soaked, in her own parking lot and then guilts her into performing the procedure. Darien has discovered that the conversation they had in TVOS has quite an effect on his Keeper in getting her to do what he wants. Between that, the guilt, and the puppy-dog look Darien throws at Claire, how could she resist? Then back at the lab the experiment goes on, despite the appropriate thunderstorm and the mixed feelings of Hobbes, who keeps oscillating between creeped out at the idea, concern for his partner, and trying to give him support to make this idea work. When Darien falls unconscious he immediately lays on the guilt...as far as Hobbes is concerned he helped come up with the idea and stole the RNA so it could work, so he’s responsible for killing his own partner, and the grief is just heartbreaking to hear in his voice as Claire tries to calm him down.
-(as the thunderstorm rages) "Why does the weather get like this every
time somebody tries to screw with the boundaries of science?"
"Maybe somebody’s trying to say something."
-"Claire? What happened? What am I doing here? And what in God’s name am I wearing?!" Yea Kevin, we’d all like to know that last one too.
-I love how Hobbes takes charge of informing Kevin of his situation by just dragging him over to a mirror!
-You can almost see Kevin’s mind going a mile a minute as the discoveries and questions just pile up...they put the gland in Darien! 'It works! How did it work? Why can’t I get it to work? Isn’t is SO COOL!' He’s such a geek, and we all love it!
-Poor Claire almost stutters to a stop when the Official walks in!
-...and then Charlie has a small heart attack when he realizes who’s really in Darien’s body!
-Oh Lord...it’s Darien...in A SUIT AND TIE!!! How come that only happens when he’s possessed or blind?!
-I love how Eberts gauges exactly where to put the chair for Kevin to fall into, then quickly stands just behind him as if behind the Official!
-"This is my mortal enemy and you brought him to my house?!"
-Only a Fawkes (either one) could get his butt kicked to the gentle sounds of classical music.
-What’s that sound I hear? Oh yea...it’s all the Shippers sighing in enjoyment over Kevin and Claire kissing. Quite the tender moment, if not a bit uncomfy when you realize Kevin is using his brother’s body to make out with his former girlfriend who is now his brother’s Keeper! Rather disturbing if you think of it like that. I’m also surprised Claire let it get that far in the first place!
-It was great to see Darien come back and get so excited at the idea that Kevin told them how to remove the gland...that it might already be out! And then quickly get pissed off at the condition he’s in and the fact that it’s gonna take more time.
-"Who are you?"
"Darien."
"Are you sure?"
-"What is this? What happened to me? And what in God’s name am I wearing?" Hey Darien, perhaps you’d like to raid that part of your closet more often?
-And now for the Truer Words Were Never Spoken Category: Darien, "I get beaten up enough, I don’t need his help!"
-Great Scene 3: Kevin watches a message from his brother. Now this should be a completely surreal situation...Darien recording a message for his brother, who’s gonna wake up in HIS body, so what we see is Darien talking to himself. Yet the scene is just gutwrenching as Darien finally tells Kevin a bit of what he’s wanted to since Kevin died; how much he misses him, how he’d gladly have given up his own life to save his brother...then Darien fumbles over his own words and embarrassed, turns off the camera. Kevin is obviously moved by his brothers words, and so are we.
-Then Arnaud appears (so to speak) and finally takes Darien’s advice by capturing his arch-nemesis by simply sneaking in and hitting him over the head. Except instead of a baseball bat it’s "Philosophy’s Greatest Hits". So the hits DO just keep on coming!
-"Needless to say, this is a little prick..."
-Arnaud is getting a lot of fun to watch. His cool demeanor from previous episodes has eroded away with the permanent invisibility, and he’s obviously walking on the edge of madness himself!
-Kevin is so anguished over how much pain the gland has caused...his dream has turned into a nightmare and he’s distraught by it!
-Great Scene 4: Hobbes leads Kevin to lab 4, telling him along the way how much is brother has changed for the better and how Kevin would be proud of Darien. Hobbes isn’t the type of guy to give praise lightly, and it’s obvious he’s not lying to Kevin to make the guy feel better. It’s a touching moment to see.
-Hobbes can tell something is up with Kevin at the end...watch the look on his face when Kevin says "Take care of him (Darien) for me" and then the shot as the door slowly closes...
-I was so happy to hear David Burke doing Kevin’s V/O. It was a perfect way to say goodbye to Kevin again.
-Great Scene 5: Things come full circle as Hobbes finds Darien at the cemetery again. Darien lays out his anger and grief over Kevin’s betrayal, and even though he probably knows why Kevin did what he did, he’s unhappy with the result. Hobbes tries to offer comfort to the living, and when that fails turns to give it to the dead. Even with the shot focused on the flag, you can almost see Hobbes standing back to salute Kevin’s grave before walking after his partner. A touching ending to a great show!
The Bad:
-Arnaud falls several stories to land on his back on a car hard enough to break the windows and crush the ceiling...and can still strip and walk away?!
-For someone who didn’t even know what QSM was and who’s never seen the mutation that caused it, Kevin sure depicted the pain of going nuts rather accurately!
The Crap Count: Making up for last week’s dismal 0, this week our cup runneth with crap! :-)
-"Well you can beat around the bush, or you can cut the crap and tell me what’s on your mind right now." Hobbes, to Darien at the cemetery.
-"Merde!" Arnaud, after breaking a mirror with his hand.
-"Aw crap!" Kevin, as he’s about to get his ass kicked by Arnaud.
-"Holy crap!" Darien, finding out the RNA transfer worked.
-"Aw crap!" Darien and Kevin together in the Pilot flashback. While not technically in this episode, I guess it still kinda counts!
The Nitpicky:
-I was sorely tempted through this entire episode to make John Edwards jokes...
-...or whisper every time Kevin was around "I see dead people!"
-So QSM Darien is really a rabid dog?
-Who knew that Claire had a garage door remote for the Keep!
-OK, so what was the item Darien had to steal from the Cuban embassy? Is this related to that thing from ‘Pulp Fiction’ that we never find out what it is?
-Holy crap...it actually RAINS IN SAN DIEGO!! More then that, it THUNDERSTORMS! :-)
-Does anyone else think the whiteboard drawing of Darien looked a lot like Guybrush Threepwood?
-Added Dialogue: Claire, as Kevin rises for the first time, "He’s alive! HE’S ALIVE!!"
-More Added Dialogue: Hobbes, over the mic, "Fawkes, acknowledge. Fawkes! Acknowledge! Damnit Fawkes, you’re as bad as your brother!"
-So Darien’s body sure went through the wringer in this eppy. Ignoring the fact that he got his ass kicked a few times, it was up for at least 2 1/2 days straight! The first time Kevin showed up he was awake for well over 20 hours, and then after that when one would fall asleep the other would wake up. I’m surprised either could still function at the end!
-How many times in the last year has there been an episode with a Pilot flashback?
-"They say the gland has worked to a good end. They say the gland has saved lives." Hey Charlie, what about the person that gland is attached to?!
"I feel like I’m on my own again."
"Well you’re not, Fawkes. You got a lot of people looking out for
you!"
-Darien and Hobbes
