Hey everyone!
Here we stand on the edge of another hiatus, and so I present to you my final review of the month. As always herein lies huge honkin’ spoilers for The Lesser Evil, and all ideas are my own. No one slipped an envelope of information under MY door!
Overall:
It’s been a while since Darien’s trust in the Agency was called into question. Clearly he still has some issues with the Official and the way he’s treated sometimes, but for the last few weeks his resistance has been much more passive. He’s come to trust and respect Hobbes as a friend, and had made peace with Claire and the Official about their roll in his servitude. But it doesn’t take much to bring those suspicions back up to the surface.
If there’s one thing Darien really hates, it’s stonewalling. The Official has learned that the best way to get Darien to start digging for answers is to not respond to his questions. He drops some info in the right places, dismisses Darien’s attempts for information...and so Darien becomes the rope in a very ugly tug of war between the Agency and Chrysalis. He’s lied to and manipulated on both sides as they try to get what they want. In the end Chrysalis looses some good office space and some information...and the Official looses a lot of Darien’s trust.
The Good:
-There were so many quotes this week I almost put them in their own section! Besides the sayings about curiosity killing the cat, having super with the Devil, and the ends justifying the means, we get a bit of Sir Francis Bacon (who not only heard voices, but many people think he actually wrote all of Shakespeare’s works), the Bible, Tennessee Williams, and Thoreau.
-Usually the Weekly Wardrobe Wrap-up goes in the nitpicky sections...because it’s not always good...but this week I would like to bow down and kiss the feet of whatever Wardrobe Saint decreed that jeans should be put back in Darien’s closet. THANK YOU! :-)
-...and for those of you who complain that I never talk about Hobbes’ wardrobe...well it’s cause the guy looks good almost all the time. He was even cute in that little painter outfit. :-)
-You know I wonder if I’ve got a small manila envelope out there that contains my life and times.
-"Oh great, Stacey Meyer was cheating on me."
(Lauren glances at R2)
...uh, OK. Now...umm...let me get this straight. You’re going out with
Darien Fawkes...a man who’s assets I don’t need to list off to this
group...and you cheated on him?! Who were you double-timing with? Hobbes?! :-)
-As if the bboard hasn’t come up with enough nicknames for Allinoria, Darien gives us Aqua Mama.
-I do like how Darien never really falls for all the blatant manipulation Allinoria uses to get him to come with her.. He goes in on all of this with both eyes open.
-Cerberus, no mater if it was Hell or Hades he was guarding, was one big ugly nasty three headed dog. Not the kind of thing you want to play with.
-I love how Darien slinks out of the elevator, down the hall and into Stark’s office as if someone’s gonna jump him at any moment.
-So Stark says "Some opponents are so dangerous they become valuable." And this is the third time Darien and the Agency have been a huge thorn in Evil Co.’s side. Methinks Darien has become a bit too valuable...and I have a bad feeling the next time Chrysalis comes calling it won’t be to offer him a job.
-I not surprised that the Official would be reading Sun Tzu’s "The Art of War". That should have been our first clue he’s the one in charge of the battle.
-Great Scene #1: Claire, the Official, and Eberts discuss the AWOL Darien while Hobbes tries to be nice and threatening at the same time about the $800 glass window deduction. From Hobbes’ snipping at Eberts, to the Official’s attempts to divert the discussion to Darien, to Claire’s sad suggestions that Bobby hasn’t taken his meds yet, it a great little scene! Anyway I thought it was an action scene law that a bad guy MUST get thrown through a glass window if one is available.
-"You better stay out of this Charlie Brown if you know what’s good for you!" Say Mike, how did that play go anyway? :-)
-For a minute, Stark turns into every single nitpicker who’s wondered why Darien keeps claiming to have killed nobody when there’s a body count to list. Of course Darien has a good reason for all of them...honestly I think it’s good that he does, ‘cause I do believe directly killing someone would tear him inside out.
-I am also not surprised that the Official has an abacus.
-So Hobbes checks all of Darien’s "usual haunts."...meaning the thrift shop and the beauty supply store. Oh dear...
-I love how Hobbes finds Darien by sitting down on him in the chair!
-You gotta give Eddie credit for poking fun at himself..."You expect me to buy that? You bowl a Dutch 200 is the day I run the Boston Marathon."
-Great Scene 2: Darien tries to get info out of Claire, who just smiles and stonewalls. If I was Claire, I’d be making sure that there wasn’t any cold drafts following me around for the next few days.
-Great Scene 3: Hobbes catches Darien shifting through the archives, they tango, then Darien spills the beans about what’s going on when he realizes Hobbes is on his side. Once again Bobby Hobbes doesn’t bail on his partner. And the look on Hobbes face when Darien says "It’s a long story." just screams "I’m not going anywhere, tell it."
-Another spy trick Hobbes has up his sleeve...our little tiger is a master of Wushu! Why the CIA doesn’t just teach Kempo is beyond me....but still that fight scene was quite a bit of fun to watch! For extra laughs, watch the guy’s jaw drop when Darien turns invisible.
-In the You Can Hear It On His Face Category: the look on Darien’s face when the Official tells him solution beta is active just screams "aw crap!"
-Love the safe hidden behind the front of file boxes!
-"Well said sir!"
"Shut up, Eberts!"
...and yet two seconds later the Official wants Eberts to continue!
-Here’s another reason I think Darien would drive himself nuts if he actually thought he was responsible for killing someone directly...the horror in his voice when he says "They killed a guy just to sell a con."
-I really liked how they framed the conversation between Stark and Darien in the window, with just their outlines.
-Stark drops a hint about this Mass Destruction coming up when he says he thinks everyone will be out of the spy racket for good...soon...
-I liked that Hobbes came right out and explained the three possibilities with what could happen when Darien goes to shoot Allinoria. You don’t get that often, the good guys often don’t even talk about how that kind of set up is possible.
-So I know the reason Darien was suddenly so hormonal with Allinoria was to get close enough to make sure she was protected. He wasn’t just feeling her up, he was feeling her sweater up for Kevlar lining. I don’t think he would have shot her if she wasn’t going to be fine. Still it was not fun to see our normally sweet hero be so...smarmy.
-When Darien goes back to Hobbes to tell him about what happened, it’s obvious Hobbes is much more comfortable with this spy game then he is. Hobbes is just happy Darien got into the organization...Darien is upset about how he had to do it. Remember, for him the ends don’t justify the means.
-While the quicksilver effects are usually very good, the shot of the QS falling off the CD and then it being placed in the computer was especially excellent!
-"Take him to holding, prep him for surgery."
"You guys don’t have to rush on my account."
-Gotta love Hobbes storming the castle, taking down the bad guys left and right..."You want a code? I’ll give you a code....here’s one. AK...what does that say...40 something."
-Great Scene 4: Darien and Allinoria come clean on what was going on with all the tests. I for one believe she was tricked into thinking Darien was in real danger...Darien however believes that she lied to him to get him to switch sides. That scene is probably the second honest moment those two have had. Plus it’s rather dramatically framed, what with Darien sitting in that chair looking quite depressed, and the flashing lights, and Allinoria standing by the door ready to leave...
-"Better not bill me for this."
-Eberts looks so happy about his program doing so well! He’s so close to grinning when talking about how the program worked...I’d have loved to see him when the Official told him he did a good job!
-Of course Hobbes can’t let it go..."Collateral damage for Eberts ego!"
-"I’ve been Officialed."
"Officialed. I like the sound of that."
"I don’t."
The Bad:
-So if Allinoria really wanted Darien to join Chrysalis because she thought the Agency was going to kill him, why would she want him to fail their entry test? You could say she wanted him to remain at least marginally innocent...or she didn’t want him to be capable of shooting her. But she had to know that if he failed Stark would have grabbed him and had him on the operating table rather quickly. Plus she should have been smart enough to realize Darien wasn’t just being smarmy with his come on’s but was searching her for a Kevlar lining. She didn’t seam surprised when he offered a hand to help her up. So what was going on with that?!
-So what exactly DID happen to that ten million dollars? Is it really sitting in a Swiss Bank Account? And what is the Official doing with all that money? Isn’t Darien even interested enough to ask?!
The Crap Count:
-"Aw crap." Darien, when he see’s it’s Allinoria.
-"Started thinking maybe it wasn’t a load of crap." Darien, about his relationship with Allinoria.
-"Aw crap!" Hobbes and Darien in stereo as the building is destroyed.
The Nitpicky:
-Ten seconds after peeling away from the curb, the Invisible Man and Aqua Mama are pulled over for speeding.
-Anyone else thinking of Farscape when they heard the guys name was Jacob Stark?
-Darien, "You could want me tortured or brainwashed..." Uh...don’t give them any ideas.
-So do Vince and Paul just like saying the word "bowl"? I mean it is a fun word to say, don’t get me wrong. They just appeared to be having quite a bit of fun saying it.
-Geeky Moment of the Night: the combo to get into the Agency Archives is 1809. Remember that for the Perseus Project test. :-)
-What is it with Darien putting flashlights in his mouth! Eeww...
-So either Darien is a lot stronger then we think, or the Official’s door is made out of balsa wood. When Darien throws the phone it punches a hole right through the door! Wow...
-So this would be the first time Darien has used a gun correctly when he wasn’t insane or possessed!
-Stark reminded me of Luke Lawson.
-So "Prep him for surgery." means stick Darien in a chair that looks like a modern artist’s version of the electric chair I guess. Why do people apparently want Darien to sit on strange looking pieces of furniture? First the Keeper’s lab chair and now that thing. Although as a plus it does look out on some nice modern art...and it swivels!
-So Darien and Hobbes run out of the burning building...a second before they had other agents with them. Where did they go?!
-Apparently, during the 9pm showing I watched, Scifi thought we needed to see Eberts walk out of the Official’s office twice at the end there. Let’s do the time warp again!
"Hope you know what you’re doing."
"That makes two of us."
-Hobbes and Darien
...who’s gonna start learning to say things backwards so she can be a former girlfriend. :-)
