Hi everyone! Welcome to my little review of Impetus. As always, this contains huge honkin’ spoilers for that episode, and all ideas inside are my own. If we’ve said the same thing, well then I’m glad you and I shared a brain wave.
Impetus (im’pe-tes) n. 1, energy of motion; the power with which a moving body tends to maintain its velocity. 2, Impulse; incentive, driving force, catalyst
(Thank you Websters Dictionary. :-) )
Overall:
OK I will admit, I was wary of this episode. I thought it was going to be very cheesy...45 minutes of watching all the actors have funny latex wrinkles applied to them. To my very happy and pleasant surprise, it wasn’t about that at all! Darien has begun to look at the people around him and ask a pertinent questions: Why are THEY there? What keeps them from using their talents for another group who will pay them much more. And so we get to find out all about The Keeper (now with a new and improved name of Claire), probably until now the most mysterious of the group. It gave Shannon a wonderful opportunity to do more then be logical and play with scientific equipment, and gave a soul to a character who before was very cold.
The Good:
-Sir Robert Walpole? All right at least up until now I recognized the other people Darien has quoted. Now I’m beginning to wonder just where he learned to be a thief...Harvard?
-I said it last week, I love the voice overs! And I got my wish for more this week! I really enjoy getting those peaks inside Darien’s head, and not only are they often humorous but help show all the motivations going on.
-So when Claire gave that first smile at the joke about her vocabulary, I was rather surprised! "Wow, a reaction from her!" Oh I had some more surprises in store! :-)
-It makes a lot of sense Claire would have some blackmail in her past. Now it makes you wonder about Hobbes, the Official, and Eberts....and hey, perhaps the Official will get a name too! :-)
-7 shrinks. I’m not sure if I feel sorry for Hobbes or for the shrinks.
-And the winner of the Fast Talking Award goes to Robert Hobbes, for his impersonation of the Micro-Machines Guy talking about need to know. Snicker and you miss half! ;-)
-So Hobbes delivers his "Ignorance is bliss" line, walks through the door and too the right, Darien turns around, and then Hobbes walks back in the other direction. Uh...wait a second...
-In the voice over while Darien is poking around in the lab, he talks about how Claire should be concerned about his curiosity. Afraid the printout with the suffering and death was about him, he pokes around and causes trouble until he catches the virus and, for a bit, that fate IS going to be about him! Talk about curiosity killing the cat...
-Why am I not surprised Claire has a dog named Pavlov. Or being all high pitched and mushy with it. Practically fell over laughing when she started her little "Who’s a good dog? Oh I’m gonna get you a treat!" ... and then did fall off when Darien was imitating her! "And Mommy has a treat too!" :-)
-And now we see everyone’s secret fear...that how they act when they think they are alone will actually be seen by other people. Who hasn’t been in their room, dancing to music, singing along, and been suddenly embarrassed when caught?
-Darien Fawkes, friend to children and small yappy dogs :-)
-"She’s cool she calculated.
She’s always in control.
No emotion, no expression.
That girl has got to go!!"
...hmmm, sounds like someone we know, eh?
-Dilemma of the week: Find out if you’re going to suffer a horrible, painful death, or watch a sexy woman naked? :-)
-Evil General Bastard is appropriately evil. And Justin, his assistant, is appropriately without a backbone. Wish we had a bit more backstory though...
-One of the best scenes was when everyone is discussing Gloria having escaped. Watching Claire, who before this episode didn’t get to show any emotion, try to keep control of her fear and anguish over Gloria being hurt or hurting others was very well done!
-Gloria’s family is THE most white bread family I have ever seen on TV.
-Ah, so you don’t need to know unless it’s something Hobbes wants to know, and then suddenly everyone needs to know what there is to know. :-)
-It’s nice that Darien came clean about all the snooping he did around Claire towards the end. Although I’m sure after this she is not going to be so casual about her car alarm going off again.
-"This isn’t going to be pleasant."
"And this is?"
-In the I Know What Your Going Through Category, watch Darien look uncomfy and wince in sympathy when Gloria is convulsing. Yea, that reaction looked VERY familiar...and was a nice bit of acting.
-Poor Hobbes, always trying to do his job, hoping to get paid well for it, and after trying to tell Gloria’s family about all that Need To Know stuff, all he gets is a big hug. Awww...
-Is this IM’s first real happy ending?? Cool!
-LOL about having the rock song Claire was playing in her room playing over the ending credits!
The Bad:
- I know I had this in the good section as well but...Gloria’s family is THE most white bread family I have ever seen on TV.
-So the Keeper works with a guy who can turn invisible, and he’s been asking all kinds of questions about her, and yet she just kinda shrugs off the fact that several seconds after leaving her car the alarm goes off and the door is open?
-OK it might just be because he was suddenly old and crotchety, but Darien was a bit harsh on Claire when she was admitting to being responsible for Gloria’s fate.
The Crap Count:
-"Cut the crap, Justin." Gloria
-"I don’t have to take any crap from buzzheads like you." The Official
The Nitpicky:
- Uh, so anyone else find it funny/ironic they were showing Hollow Man commercials?
-When Claire is given the pictures from the children, she looks at one and it appears to be a prom picture. But when she hangs them up on Gloria’s wall they both are those standard school photos. Did Claire pilfer one for herself (and is that how she got the ones on her desk?) or was that a little oops?
-So Gloria is contagious...except Claire gives her a kiss as she leaves the first time she see’s her. She then says later in the briefing "Anyone who comes into contact with Gloria is at risk. A kiss...blood..." Uh...HELLO?
-Evil General Bastard and his lackey really shouldn’t have their ultra-top secret conversations out on the street, in public like that. I mean, you didn’t need to be invisible to eavesdrop on that conversation!
-So Hobbes gets the ACME HAZARD DISPOSAL van with all the rust, Darien gets something MIB’s used during the 80’s, and the Keeper gets a brand new SUV?
- You know they warn about not leaving invisible men alone in the car with all the windows rolled up on a hot day... :-)
-"I have a very good reason to stay. Assuming you’ll still be
there."
"Yea, I think I’ll stick around."
...uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but Darien still doesn’t have a choice in
the matter, right?
-Isn’t it great we finally get to see the human side of the Keeper, and Darien and Claire get these wonderful bonding moments? ‘Cause it looks like next week we get Evil Keeper Guy.
"No you don’t because if you’d need to know, you’d know. But they decided you don’t need to know, so you don’t. So stop thinking about what you don’t know because you don’t need to know what think you need to know about!" -Hobbes
