Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Way We Were
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 17 | Aired on 02.25.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's Papa Bennet backstory time! What you need to know from the past: Eric Roberts, looking like a Madame Tussaud's version of himself, is Papa Bennet's boss. We don't learn much about him, but if he's played by Eric Roberts my guess is you don't want to fuck with him.
Papa Bennet didn't adopt Claire willingly, either; he was ordered to byâ¦George Takei. While Hiro played with a Gameboy nearby. He was also ordered not to get too close to Claire, because, Takei says, if she starts to manifest, they'll take her back.
Claude used to be Papa Bennet's partner; Papa Bennet was supposed to kill him, because Claude was protecting a Hero, which is against company policy; Papa Bennet probably would have skipped shooting Claude if Claude had told him who it was, but Claude doesn't, so Papa Bennet, who is a shitty shot, pumps a few rounds into him, but Claude winks out before Papa Bennet can confirm the kill.
We also meet Teen Haitian, whose necklace is a silver version of Jessica's tattoo.
Back in the present, Sprague and Parkman hold the Bennet family hostage; Parkman is trying to get to the truth by reading people's minds, and also trying to keep Sprague from flipping his shit and going all fusion-vengeance on the household. Claire is still pissed at her father and opens her mind up to Parkman to get back at him. After a bunch of Mexican-standoff misdirection that gets Claire shot, reveals her secret to her motherâ¦again, and makes us sit through a lot of speechifying about faith, Eric Roberts shows up in the present day to manage the situation. His idea of "managing" is to shoot at Ted. Nice work, Ambassador -- Ted gets so pissed that he goes nuclear and can't stop his own chain reaction, and Claire's the only one who can get close enough to him to administer a tranq. Everyone winds up with mild radiation burns and Casa Bennet looks like it's burning to the ground, but don't worry -- Mr. Muggles gets out alive.
At the end of the episode, Sprague and Parkman are drugged up and strapped to beds in the Primatech lab. Papa Bennet tries to blame everything on the Haitian (I thinkâ¦the web of finger-pointing got kind of confusing); Eric Roberts pretends he buys it, but obviously doesn't, and is like, "Okay, so, bring Claire in. Like now. So we can probe her brain and then kill her." That last part may have been silent. Cut to a tearful father-daughter scene in the car which culminates on the same bridge Papa Bennet "killed" Claude on, Papa Bennet ordering the Haitian to 1) shoot him (in the abdomen, not lethally) and 2) wipe his mind of everything so that Eric Roberts can't find Claire. Claire is bawling, I'm bawlingâ¦even the Haitian seemed kind of touched. Could have been pollen, though.
Couch Baron will take it from here on this ep. Don't panic, Erin's back next week. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Oh my God, could I be more excited to recap this episode? No, I couldn't. Well, maybe if I drank twenty cups of coffee and snorted some coke, but even then, the difference would be marginal. Wheeee!
Okay. We open on a shot of the Bennet home. Oh, I should just mention that if you're interested in seeing a shot of Simone's cold corpse, you're going to have to wait until the previews for next week. That blood is never going to come out of Isaac's floor at this rate. So from a low angle, we do a slow pan around the foyer to the stairs, down which Mr. Muggles comes with a bit of a growl. It's too bad he's too teeny to do any good in the upcoming situation, but you have to admire his instincts. Outside, we get an orgasmically cool shot of the episode title and number written in white letters over the house. If that's the show's way of currying favor by saving me from having to look up that information, it's appreciated but unnecessary, as I'm going to be geeking out for this episode so intensely that I'm afraid it's going to render me too dorky even to get into a Star Trek convention. So it turns out that we're starting a few minutes earlier than when we left the Bennet household. Mr. Muggles's growling turns to full-fledged barking as we hear a sizzling noise, and then flames appear around the door handle and lock, which melt away. Sprague quickly enters and scoops up Mr. Muggles, and Parkman's all, "Don't!" Yes, please don't barbecue Mr. Muggles, Sprague. I've grown attached to the guy, and besides, there's barely enough of him to make a single kebab. Sprague irritatedly says he isn't going to nuke the dog, although Parkman muses that it might be the most effective way to get at Bennet, since there are more pictures of dogs around his house than of his kids. Well, I'll admit I like Claire a little bit more than dogs. However, I like dogs a whole lot more than Lyle, so overall, the math makes sense to me.
As they head into Bennet's study or whatever, Sprague opines how unlikely it is that Bennet left anything incriminating in the house, especially given that he recently got raided by the FBI at work. Parkman starts manhandling the computer, saying that it's worth looking. I guess Parkman doesn't know that Zach already checked the thing out and said there was nothing on it. Or maybe, understandably enough, he just doesn't trust the word of an ex-gay. Speaking of which, how awesome is it that Jack Coleman played Steven Carrington on Dynasty? Related to Joan Collins and going out with Billy Campbell? That's a life I could get behind having. Sprague suggests Parkman simply read Bennet's mind to find out what they want to know, and Parkman says he intends to do just that. "We're gonna bag the smug son of a bitch at his paper factory." Ooh, shouldn't have taunted Parkman like that, Bennet. Just then, however, the Bennet family pulls into the driveway, and Sprague suggests they take him right there and then. Parkman is initially insistent that they not involve innocents, but Sprague points out that the family's presence will be a powerful motivator for Bennet to be tractable, and asks how many times Parkman's going to let Bennet slip through his fingers. Despite the fact that he takes another look at Claire touchingly helping her mother toward the door, Parkman steels himself and draws his gun. A new camera angle gives us a shot of a clock in the foreground reading about 6:25, and then we focus on the Bennets coming in the front door. (I almost typed "family" instead of "Bennets" in that last sentence, but I was suddenly stricken with the coldest chills I've ever experienced. Can't imagine why.)