Hi everyone!
It’s the second season (already?) and life is good. I really like this no waiting until the next season thing. It’s fun! Anyway on to the review. As always this contains huge honkin’ spoilers for Legends, and all ideas are my own. Nothing from large invisible reviewers out in the woods. :-)
Overall:
Our agents find themselves looking into a grisly murder that apparently has been caused by Bigfoot, and after several close encounters end up closing the case with no evidence to prove anything.
Hrm...Hobbes isn’t the only one who noticed this sounds a lot like an X-File.
Despite some plot flaws this was a fun episode, putting the unique spin IM has on an old scifi situation. Of course anytime we get to see the Three Amigo’s (Darien, Hobbes, and Claire) working together it’s a fun time, and it’s those moments where the episode really rocks.
The Good:
-Bookend quotes this week, with Salmon Rushdie and George Orwell. What, no Fox Mulder? :-)
-So all good things must come to an end, but the bad things just get worse. Does that go along with good things coming to those who wait but the bad things being impatient?
-I loved Darien and Hobbes’ small argument on if they should hear the good or bad news first. We never do hear their reasons why.
-Eberts has a wonderful way of delivering the truth that the Official doesn’t want known, and he gets his fair share of "Shut up, Eberts!" for it this week!
-...although his best move of the day was how he stood right in front of the Indian headdress, crossed his arms and delivered his lecture. Hail Chief Eberts!
-John Grey slides the remains of the victims back and we get some nice reactions...Claire has on the classic scientist game face, Hobbes tries to convince himself that "I’ve seen worse" and is OK till the little tidbit about going for the family jewels first comes out, and Darien just looks completely disturbed standing in the back.
-It was fun watching John and Hobbes argue over tracking. Here are two men who just started off on the wrong foot, yet have a lot in common when it comes to skills. Of course the fact that John is taking some of Claire’s attention might be irking Hobbes as well :-)
-OK so it was a running gag, but I still gotta admit it was fun watching
Darien carrying around the water bottle...
"Use it, we want to keep the groundwater pure."
"I can work with that."
"Aim to kill."
-Once again the music composer gets to play with the X-Files theme when Hobbes delivers his line, "Looks like this is going to the X-Files."
-I love how Hobbes is perfectly willing to accept that it’s really Bigfoot. I kept thinking about the conversation in GOAC, when he talks about how everyone accepts an invisible man but not a ghost. It’s interesting how Hobbes is always the one willing to see the more outrageous possibilities.
-Then Hobbes goes out and finds a print and gets nothing but a pat on the head and "That's good, Bobby."
-And now for the Classy Moment of the Eppy: Darien tells John a joke, and fortunately the phone rings loud enough to cover up the dirty word. "Why does a dog lick it’s *RING* Why does he lick his *RING* ‘Cause he can...get it?"
-I loved how Claire tried to crumble leaves and leave out words to make it sound like she’s breaking up...and then later for the Official and Eberts to pull the same trick!
-"An infant baby Bigfoot is what that is...that’s Baby Bigfoot!"
-"You want proof? POOF! Proof!" Say that ten times fast!
-Great Scene 1: IM’s tribute to classic horror movies, as the camping gang is attacked by Bigfoot. John gets killed, Darien licked, and then they all get to scream in terror. They run for the truck only to fumble for the keys in cliché horror movie fashion, then get thrown about the car and left hanging. For extra camp enjoy the various wonderful looks of terror.
-I loved Darien, in the tent freaked out, trying to wake Hobbes by just saying his name over and over again and never taking his eyes off the tent wall.
-Hobbes then gets freaked out enough that he actually ends up pointing his gun at Darien! "Don’t point that at me!"
-"If we don’t move it won’t see us." Uh, Hobbes? It’s Bigfoot, not the T-Rex from Jurassic Park!
-"Guy with a shotgun, yea...how about that FREAKIN' INVISIBLE MONSTER?!"
-I like the moment after Claire announces the blood is saturated with quicksilver...there’s a long pause as everyone kinda looks at Darien, then Hobbes thinks his partners been hurt while Darien out-science’s Claire.
-So Hobbes is Ahab (the captain searching for Moby Dick), Claire is van Helsing (the Doctor who hunts down Dracula) and Darien is Perseus (the Greek hero who can turn invisible).
-"Quicksilver, for men."
"Use it at the risk of your sanity!"
-The fun of being a writer is that you can come up with really lame jokes, and still get a laugh by having other characters react to it. Example: "He’s your gland-daddy!"
-The fight between Darien, Hobbes and the invisible Bigfoot was really well done...must have been hard what with all the invisible effects too!
-"Mayday, mayday...Kirk to Enterprise..."
-Now for Partners Who Are Too Freaked Out To Be Intelligent: Hobbes, after hearing Darien call on the walkie-talkie, "Are you alive?" Darien’s response, "I don’t know."
-The look on Darien’s face, even (and especially!) upside down, is just priceless when he finds out the Wendigo thinks he’s a she!
-For a second, Larry turned into every disgusting crazy old guy as he pants in Darien’s face describing what the Wendigo is gonna do to him. Eeewww...
-Usually my response to seeing Darien either with red eyes or quicksilvered eyes is just to shudder and want to run away...but he does look absolutely terrified at the Wendigo coming, and my heart went out to the guy.
-I loved how the Official pounded his desk hard enough to make a statue fall over, and how Darien and Hobbes just end up staring at the statue!
The Bad:
-Apparently there are two kinds of Native Americans on TV: The modern guy who doesn’t believe any of the stories or traditions from his heritage yet ends up being proven drastically wrong...and the Tribal Elder who’s strange and mysterious wisdom is always right. Nice to know both showed up in this eppy.
-It’s also nice to see the ol’ cliché of the bad guy who must completely explain himself in the last 5 minutes of the show before his scheme blows up.
-What exactly was Joseph talking to Darien about when he placed his hand on Darien’s chest and said "You watch out for Wendigo, in here." Uh...you’d figure he’d point to Darien’s head (for the gland) or his groin (for his...*ahem*...you know). What was that about?
-So Bigfoot attacks Darien, Hobbes and Claire in the truck just after 1am, and is chased off by Larry. The next scene they are just searching the campsite and the sun is well up. Did they just stay in the shattered truck all night long? Why wait?!
-So what did happen to John Grey’s body? Considering the other victims had remains found, why was John taken and where is his body?
-Did we really need to see the big fleshy foot come down on the phone? Kinda predictable, if you ask me...and would have been more fun for it to be invisible.
The Crap Count:
-"Ah crap." Darien, finding himself hanging from a tree.
-"Ah crap Claire, here she comes what am I supposed to do?!" Darien, as the Wendigo approaches.
-"Aw crap!" Darien, when the Wendigo arrives.
The Nitpicky:
-"Many moons ago." So like, last weekend?
-"Papa and his buddy are going into the woods." It took a lot of self control to keep from singing some Sondheim right about then.
-What in the world was Darien whooping about when they arrived at the reservation?
-So the Wendigo (not Wendy’s, Hobbes. :-) ) has red eyes, is considered evil, and kills relentlessly. Does that mean Bigfoot is permanently QSM?
-John and Claire joke about Darien and Hobbes not being dressed properly for the wilderness...but with those heels Claire isn’t quite in camping style either.
-...speaking of clothes (oh y’all knew this was coming!) time for the Weekly Wardrobe Wrap-up. OK I’ll admit, the floppy Canadian hat was very cute, and I’m always glad to see that fine black leather jacket. Actually most of Darien’s clothes were real nice this week...uh...except that last shirt with the horses. That’s from too much time spent playing cowboys and Indians. Give that one back to the Goodwill please?
-Is it possible another theory for how the footprints got there was someone DUG them?
-Where the Hell did Mountain Man get a semi-automatic, a bunch of grenades, and heat vision goggles?!
-What was Darien singing when his night watch shift ended?
-Isn’t one of the rules of a Horror movie to never split up? If I was Darien, when Hobbes ran off to find John I’d be right there with him! Hobbes has the gun!
-There’s a brief shot of bird flying low to the ground...was that from Ralph?
-So Darien hanging upside down in the tree reminded me of The Empire Strikes Back, where Luke gets captured and strung up by the Alien Bigfoot. Except that thing wanted to eat Luke, and the Wendigo wanted to...uh...get to know Darien better.
-Missing Dialogue: Darien, "Odets, why?"
Odets, "Why? Why what?"
Darien, "Why?"
Odets, "Why ask why?"
-Larry yanks off his hat in anger, throws it on the ground, then grabs a spray can and starts spraying himself. We cut to Darien for a second as he asks what that is, and when we cut back Larry’s hat has magically jumped back on his head so he has to take it off again to spray his head. Whoops...
-I had this horrible feeling, after the explosion, Darien was gonna be covered in invisible Wendigo parts. Eeeww...
-So I’m guessing the Official wanted to cover up the Wendigo because it had a gland, and he wants to keep the gland a secret. You’d figure he’d help come up with a cover story then! Something about Larry causing all the problems to prove his theories.
"Your joking, right? Cause I mean...I don’t know if I mentioned this
before but...uh...I’m hanging from a tree, I’m not in the mood to be joking
right now, OK Keep?"
-Darien
