Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | 657 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT He's Alive, I Tells Ya! ALIVE!
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 5 | Aired on 2008.10.13
Claire and Bennet pull up to their house, and Bennet, in a conciliatory tone, says they'll talk more when he gets home. I'd guess "more" in this case means "at all," because I'd imagine Claire didn't even open her mouth to exhale on the ride home. Backing me up, Claire starts to get out without a word, but Bennet stops her by saying he knows she's disappointed, but he did what he had to do, for them. The camera pans right, and for the first time, we see Sylar is sitting in the back seat. Nice. He tells Bennet that Claire doesn't believe him. "Claire finally sees you for what you are. A user. Isn't that right, Claire? You used her to try to find that poor man, and you used him to try to kill me, because to you, I'm nothing but a MONSTER." That pretty much sums things up, so I expect we'll be seeing this clip in the previouslies for weeks to come. Sylar wraps up by telling Claire that Bennet doesn't see their humanity, and he never will. Claire gets out, with Bennet, who can't afford to let Sylar have the last word, following and saying that Sylar is a deranged sociopath and a killer. He goes on that everything he does is to protect the family, and asks her to tell him she understands. After a pause that's way too long to inspire confidence, Claire says she does, and Bennet pulls her into an embrace. "It's all gonna be okay. I promise." Well, at least he didn't tell her to trust him again, but it's not like this is much more believable.
Inside, Claire greets Sandra with much more enthusiasm than she had for her dad, and Sandra, after the preliminaries about being worried and grounding the shit out of her ass, says she's just glad Meredith found her. This was an effective "Oh, CRAP" moment for me, because it had been so long since she took off to find Claire...
...but we cut to her now, as the ostensible Eric Doyle is asking her if she's enjoying her dinner. Meredith looks like she's had more enjoyable experiences at the gynecologist, but takes a bite in unison with Doyle as we get our first view of him, and he looks pretty much like a stubbly blowfish. He asks her for a kiss, and when she tells him to go to hell, he makes a little hand gesture that shuts her mouth. Forget flying -- that's the power I'd want. He stands, tilts his head, and leans forward -- and she stiffly mimics his movements, almost like a puppet, and I may have enjoyed Farscape a lot but this is still freaking me out. Luckily, he doesn't drag the (closed-mouth) kiss out, but a wider shot lets us see the room is littered with what looks like puppets and -- even worse -- clowns. I hope no one ever again questions Meredith's love for Claire, now that they've seen her be willing to endure this.