Hey everyone!
Kinda nice to have an actual IM eppy on again...it seams like it’s been weeks since that’s happened! Anyway welcome to my dorky little review of "Sense of Community". As always this contains HUGE HONKIN’ spoilers for that eppy, and all ideas are my own.
Overall:
IM pays homage to the classic British scifi series "The Prisoner" as Darien and Hobbes end up in The Community where a group of retired spies are living out their golden years. Of course, like Number 6, they didn’t want to be there and try their best to get out. At least neither were attacked by a gigantic white bubble named Rover...
While this episode did have some problems, its a ton of fun to watch since it focuses on what (in my honest opinion) IM does best: put Darien and Hobbes in a quirky situation and watch them react to it. The Official is right, Hobbes and Fawkes have become a well-oiled team, and watching them banter their way through a problem is always a joy. The plot itself is rather simple, so to quote "Going Postal"...it’s the people that make this interesting.
The Good:
-For quotes this week Darien gives us Sophocles and some Wizard of Oz ("Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore."), Corelli gives us Mark Twain ("Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"), and Hobbes gives us William Congreve ("Hell hath no fury" like a woman scorned).
-"I was a thief, not a wheelman!"
-Great Scene 1: Darien and Hobbes are chewed out by the Official, but they chew right back about the dangers of lack of funds. Eberts delivers some info on ASS *snicker* and the plot begins. Gotta love the banter between Darien and Hobbes about Tiny Tim, the round robin name calling ("Fawkes..." "Hobbes..." "Boys..." "Fawkes..." "Hobbes..." "Boys!"), and Eberts letting out that lovely sigh after dropping the stack of files!
-I don’t think Darien would appreciate Hobbes giving the excuse "He’s got a prostate problem." to the secretary to let him wander off and quicksilver!
-The very first door Darien looks in at ASS is the office of "J. Hoffa". So Jimmy ended up at the Community? :-)
-Hobbes may not have scored with Low, but I think he’ll have a fun time "boot scootin" with the ASS secretary!
-Darien knows better then to get in the way of an irate and patriotic Bobby Hobbes, so he just hangs back and reads a National Geographic while Hobbes grills Paul Grant. And grill he does...Hobbes tears into Grant like a dog after a bone!
-There’s nothing more freaky then three thugs in identical gray suits showing up at your door!
-"Are we dead?"
"If we are, Heaven is a major let down."
-I loved the synchronized looks Hobbes and Darien give outside of Grant’s new place. Nope...this is not Kansas!
-And now Best Reaction Shot of the Eppy: Hobbes sees dead people, namely his old partner. It’s a great mix of happy, freaked, and convinced he’s going nuts!
-It figures Darien would name Corelli’s quote like he’s answering a quiz show question!
-Gotta love Hobbes relishing his story about Claire sobbing at his own fake funeral. He’s never gonna let that go!
-If only they really got Patrick McGoohan to play "that guy" from "that show"...the British gentleman that waltzed by Darien and Hobbes in a nice nod to "The Prisoner".
-Great Scene 2: Claire attempts to save her snake from repossession while answering the Official about how much time Darien has left. She’s so pissed and upset...and it’s hysterical to watch her struggle with the Repo guys over her lab animals!
-"Stop staring at my breasts and I’ll tell you."
-"It’s a long, complicated tale of intrigue and extreme personal
jeopardy."
"Well I won’t ask then."
"Thanks, I appreciate that!"
-Great Scene 3: Low attempts to seduce Hobbes and almost succeeds twice, but Hobbes resists in the end. Gotta love the sexy sax music from "Going Postal" (that still sounds like it’s from "Blade Runner" to me!) that scratches off both times Hobbes pulls away, the 100 year old James Bond...and wow talk about a steamy make out session!
-Wait...what was that sound? Oh yea, it was all the Hobbes Honeys fainting at the sight of Bobby Hobbes shirtless! ‘Bout time if you ask me...now if only he’d done a rap while looking in the mirror. :-)
-I love how Eberts gets sent to find where Darien and Hobbes are once all the other agents are fired! He looks so freaked walking into Darien’s empty apartment...you just gotta feel for the guy, he’s not Agent material.
-With all the women Hobbes has chased in the last 2 years, it’s no wonder Darien would laugh at the idea that Hobbes is gay. Figures that Low would try to rationalize her failure to seduce him like that.
-Poor Hobbes, lead astray by his former partner. Especially after backing him up to Darien with "I trust him like I trust you." But it makes sense Corelli would be out for revenge if it was Hobbes’ fault his cover was blown.
-And now its time for Kung Fu Hobbes! Wo ho!
-Coolest Moment of the Eppy: Hobbes slides a chair across the Official’s office right to where Darien, without even looking, goes to sit down. DAMN was that cool or WHAT!?
-I have this feeling that the entire episode was one big joke, and Claire got to deliver the punchline: "So you kicked ASS!"
The Bad:
-In "Father Figure" Hobbes had Golda fixed so she’s driving like the Batmobile, yet this week she breaks down during the chase?
-I believe it was a famous film director who talked about how if you see a gun at the beginning of a movie, that gun must go off by the end. All episode we’re shown the loaded gun of Darien’s monitor, and the impetus driving them to escape quickly is so that he doesn’t go QSM inside the Community. Yet he never "goes off"...even after he apparently blows through segments in hours with little to no quicksilver use (at one point he’s got 6 red, a few hours later 8 red!)! And at the end he’s got one green segment left and can completely quicksilver long enough to stun the helicopter, then keep his eyes quicksilvered to watch for the particle beams?! Once again the writers use or ignore QSM symptoms when it’s convenient for the plot.
-If ASS is going to go through the trouble of kidnapping Darien and moving his entire apartment to their place, don’t you think they would have found out about the gland and his QSM problem?
-ALL of Claire’s equipment is rented? Including what she uses to make counteragent? Including that super fast computer Alex supposedly GOT for her that should have quicksilver information on it?
-After frying the helicopter, would the sensors that let down the particle beams still work?
The Crap Count:
-"Oh crap!" Hobbes, finding out about the particle beams.
The Nitpicky:
-When did Golda get one of those flashing cop lights with the siren?
-Really Bad Blue Screen Alert: the shots of Hobbes leaning out the van window to shoot at the perps. Bleh...at least this week the FX of Darien quicksilvering his eyes was better then in IG, but they GOTTA fix these driving shots!
-When the van turns and Hobbes is yelling "Floor it, floor it!", the red light isn’t flashing. When we cut inside it is...oops!
-Oh Lord...it’s the return of the Jerry Jacket! Darien ended up wearing that awful thing all eppy, even though he HAD all of his other clothing there and at least one full day went by. Hobbes changed clothes, why couldn’t Darien?
-So Hobbes talks about how if they play their cards right, he and Darien can sell their life story. So uh...are we watching the fruits of that plan? Are Hobbes and Darien right now lounging somewhere in the Community reviewing the latest episode of "The Invisible Man"?
-All of Darien and Hobbes’ stuff ended up at the Community. Will Hobbes get reimbursed for having his entire apartment blown up? Will Darien ever get any of his stuff back?
-Where exactly is the Community? If it’s a dome like the Truman Show, that’s GOTTA be hard to hide...the one from the Truman Show was big enough to see from space.
"You laid Low?"
"Actually...well, uh...could you rephrase that, please?"
-Darien and Hobbes
