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Dr. RevCam King and the Powells are spying on each other, although neither side knows it's being spied on… at first. You'd think the side that has a shapeshifter who can look like anyone would have the advantage, right?
Well, what actually happens is that while Charlotte blunders around the Powell homestead, clumsily imitating Stephanie and Daphne, Stephanie is still working at the lab in hopes of getting inside King's super-secret project of evil so she can get the evidence they need to stop him. Not content to let her do the spying alone, Jim has George help him track King's phone records to an apartment that's clearly also an HQ for the Powell surveillance project. It turns out to be Charlotte's, and after a brief confrontation, she escapes from Jim and vanishes into the crowd.
Katie tries to help Joshua with his withdrawal symptoms by trying to make him a batch of serum herself. But Stephanie busts her, learns the truth about Joshua, and decides to help him herself -- by coming up with something that'll get rid of not only his symptoms, but his powers themselves. Thanks?
JJ, meanwhile, has taken it upon himself to solve a mystery for Natalie. Seems her mother was conveniently murdered ten years ago. With the help of Daphne and her new-newbility of Jedi mind tricks, he not only tracks down the killer but recovers the locket that once belonged to Natalie's mother. He might be getting some after all.
Thanks in part to some clever deduction but mostly Charlotte's terrible spycraft, Jim ends up confronting her at the Powell Pad while she's in his form. After some Jim-on-Jim violence, Jim is the last Jim standing, although we're meant to wonder about it (we don't). Joshua gets to repay Stephanie's favor in advance by disposing of Charlotte's body, while Stephanie decides to imitate Charlotte right back -- pretending to be Charlotte-as-Stephanie and talking to King about his crush on actual-Stephanie while convincing him to let actual-Stephanie in on his secrets and send Charlotte-as-Stephanie to Belem to investigate the scene of the Powell's origin story. In fact, she's almost too convincing. But how long can it be before King notices he's short a Stephanie? Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Jim: We can't assume anybody is who they seem to be this week.
Stephanie: I know. Speaking of which, who the hell is this guy?
Substitute Recapper: Uh, Cindy's out this week, and I don't think I'm up to attempting that brilliant thing she does with the weecapping in dialogue form. I could try, but it would just be a totally unconvincing imitation that wouldn't fool a brain-damaged fern.
Jim: Like I'm not used to that after this episode.
Michael Oher: MY NAME IS KENNY!
Stephanie comes home at night to find the Powell Pad ransacked and seemingly empty, except for a Jim-looking corpse staring blankly up at the ceiling from a puddle of cranial blood. Given that we already know there's a shapeshifter in the mix, I don't think we need to be too worried (although everyone knows that shapeshifters revert to their default mode after death), but Stephanie falls to her knees to him in denial.
As if in answer to her pleas, the gods of Kübler-Ross come through with a subtitle "12 Hours Earlier," telling us that this was one of those "how did we get here?" openings. That explains why I don't remember there being a cliffhanger at the end of last week's episode. Well, that and the fact that this is the first episode I've seen.
Anyway, 12 hours in the past, Daphne is asking her mom for an advance on her allowance, but getting nowhere until she goes all Pusher from The X-Files on her and Stephanie quickly gives in. Of course she even manages to do that smugly, all but waving Daphne's landspeeder aside saying, "She can go about her business. Move along." JJ whines about the unfairness of it all, but what he really wants is someone to change Natalie's mind about dating him. Even the date he's planning with Natalie at the coffee shop isn't something that Natalie knows about yet. "Smooth," Daphne says. The kids leave as Jim enters, wondering why Stephanie's going back to work even now that they know her boss is an evil mad scientist. Stephanie says she's doing it to find out what they need to so they can stop him, and after all the bitching she's done about Jim's crimefighting, when he asks her to back off, she says they both know she's the only one who can get them inside. So she's decided to be better at crimefighting than him now too? Leave the man a shred of dignity, for crying out loud.
"I need you to get on the inside," Dr. RevCam King ironically segues to Charlotte in his office. He explains about Jim and Stephanie's newbilities, and she quips, "Quite the power couple." She agrees to take on the task, even though after that horrible joke, she's lucky to still have a job at all.
In the lab, Stephanie is bringing Katie up to speed on King's evil doings and her plan to stop them, with considerable confidence that the lab isn't bugged. I mean, dude runs the place, right? Katie wonders how Stephanie is going to be sneaky enough to gain King's trust while "chock-full of those pesky morals." Oh, I think Katie would be surprised at how un-pesky those morals can get by the last scene.
In the lair, Jim is fretting to George about how to get Stephanie out of there before she gets hurt, and they figure the fastest way to do that is to crack the case before she does. They hit on the idea of finding a disgruntled supervillain of King's to flip on him, and a second later, they pick out a number seemingly at random from King's cell phone records (illegally obtained, of course). I'm sure this number will just be a dead end and not lead to anything significant, because otherwise police work is really easy.
JJ ambushes Natalie at her favorite coffee shop, just as planned, and after he yammers about the probability of randomly running into her there (which she totally doesn't buy, because the probability was 1:1 and they both knew it), she's just about to shoot him down yet again when she happens to glance across the patio and spot a distinctive-looking rectangular locket necklace dangling from the neck of a barista. A locket just like the one that used to belong to her murdered mom. Whoa, heavy. She should ask to look inside it in case there's a picture of her in there. Instead, she just bails.
Later, at home, JJ has gone online and pulled up the old news article about Natalie's mom's death -- an unsolved murder case, of course -- to show Daphne. She says he better not be thinking what she thinks he is. "You already know what I'm thinking," he points out. JJ claims he just wants to help Natalie, and is not at all hoping she'll throw him a bone in gratitude. Yes, I said "bone." Just then they're distracted by a noise from the bathroom, and find Stephanie in there supposedly cleaning. They don't buy it, because she's obviously up to something hinky, but she gets a cell phone call from King and dodges into the living room before she has to explain herself further. King tells her, "Stephanie just left work and she's on her way home." But isn't Stephanie already at home? Nope, she just turned into Charlotte! She was Stephony all along! She thanks King for the warning and says, "I'd hate for us to come face-to-face" before striding out of the house, into the title card, and from there to an episode where Stephanie doesn't come home at all during the day.
Jim leaps onto the balcony of an apartment building, and George remotely guides him to apartment 20B, supposedly the home of a Jeremy Waldron. Seems King's been calling that place a lot in the last three days. Jim's about to give up when nobody answers his knock, but since George committed a federal offense even getting those phone records, he pressures Jim to pop the doorknob. Because having a B&E connected to this illegal search of records makes them less likely to get caught? Jim breaks into a sterile, pre-furnished, completely impersonal office/living space. In fact, the only indication that anyone's up to anything at all is a bulletin board covered with surveillance photos of all four Powells, as well as various documents, and notes on the movements of the whole family. Well, I guess this wasn't a dead end after all.
Back at home, Daphne gets a call from Chris, saying his bike won't start and he needs a ride. But it's actually Charlotte calling (she's a voice-shifter too, don't you know) to get her out of the house. That way Charlotte can shapeshift into Daphne -- clothes and all -- and head inside herself. A quick search of the master suite soon reveals Stephanie's lip stuff that so enflaccidates Jim's powers, not that Charlotte understands the significance; her Granola bar stash; and a copy of Freedom, about which all the buzz must be true, because Daphnot is instantly engrossed in it. So much so that she doesn't notice JJ has just come in all curious about what she's doing in there. Daphnot makes excuses, but is confused when JJ says it's time to go to the coffee shop. "Please tell me you haven't lost your memory again," he says. Daphnot asks why JJ needs her help, and after explaining that he's just spent an hour memorizing 37 books on criminal behavior, he says, "My super-brain can only get me so far. If I could read minds, I wouldn't need you, but I do, so let's go!" Daphnot's eyes light up as she says, "I can see how that would be very handy." But she says she has to go meet Chris. "Good chat. Very educational." Good thing she can shapeshift, because she's the worst spy ever.
Stephanie is in King's office, acting like she wants to continue Giles's research while he acts like it was too sketchy and shuts her down. Nice try, Stephanie. As she leaves the office, she gets a call from Jim, who is still hanging out in that office with the Powell-board. He tells her about it, and that they have to warn the kids.
Jim then calls Daphne's cell phone, and when she answers it, it's a little ambiguous as to whether he's talking to the real deal until she gets rather professionally curious as to how he plans to "take care of" this situation. Daphnot hangs up on an unsuspecting Jim and switches back to herself, looking concerned, or maybe wondering how she ended up with Daphne's cell phone. Does her phone shapeshift too? I can see how that would be very handy.
On the way to the coffee shop, JJ and Daphne (who has apparently already delivered Chris to wherever and returned home to pick up JJ, who had already left) are chalking up the confusion about their plans to their own miscommunication rather than the infinitely more likely scenario where JJ thought he was talking to his sister when he was actually talking to her body-snatcher. So much for his 37 books on criminal behavior. JJ's the one to approach the barista, and after ordering a double espresso, he compliments her on the locket and asks where she got it. She says her boyfriend gave it to her, and although JJ deploys some of his new criminology science, it's really not necessary; she's lying so badly that even people watching NCIS or Glee are all, "Dude, someone on ABC right now is full of it." Daphne takes her turn, and hears the barista think, "God, I hate nosy kids." Daphne pushes, "Stop lying. Just tell us where you really got the locket." She says she stole it from an antique shop. See how easy that was? She doesn't need to see Daphne's identification.
George is trying to get Jim to get out of there, but he's refusing to leave. It's not like he has a job to get to or anything. Is it even a weekday? I think maybe it is for the parents, but the kids are in the weekend somehow. It makes as much sense as the rest of the timeline. Jim notices the desk phone and decides to dust the handset for prints, just like a real policeman he's always wanted to be. He raids the kitchen, and MacGyvers up a little dusting kit with cocoa powder and Scotch tape. He's just finished lifting a complete and perfect print when he hears the front door open. Enter Charlotte, and Jim gives her just enough time to take in the scene (obvious conclusion: a puckish intruder with severe allergies and hydrophobia attempted to make himself a cup of hot chocolate while taping down her phone handset as a prank) before he bursts out of her closet demanding, "Who the hell are you?" He's all full of questions, but she fools him by acting all innocent right up until she squirts mace in his eyes. He pursues her out to the street, but as he peers red-eyed into the passing crowd, there are so many people walking by she could be anyone. Not that he knows that.
Back at King's office, Charlotte has clearly led with the good news: the kids also have powers, and are "maintaining permanence." And they don't even have to call the doctor when their powers last more than four hours! King thinks Stephanie has figured out how to do all this by herself, on purpose, unaware that she probably knows less about it than he does. Even Charlotte's news that Jim's onto her doesn't shrink his boner; he tells Charlotte to "eliminate" Jim and take his place. Charlotte thinks that's about King's amorous feelings for Stephanie, but King gets crabby in a hurry. Which, you don't have to be Daphne (or even JJ) to know Charlotte hit a nerve there.Back at the precinct, Jim tells George what happened at the apartment. George indulges in a little observational humor about hot women: "One minute they're right there, the minute they take the good couch and they're gone." And her mug shot isn't showing up in the system either. "Nobody just disappears out of thin air," George assures Jim, like they haven't already tangled with a human cloud.
Katie's visiting a sick Joshua, but the Thai soup she brought him isn't going to take care of his serum-withdrawal symptoms. Joshua refuses to go to Dr. King for more, and he also rejects Katie's suggestion of getting help from Stephanie because it involves telling her about him. He wants Katie to help him instead by trying to synthesize some serum herself. Come on, at least try the Thai soup.
JJ and Daphne have found their way to the antique dealer who used to have the locket in his window (John Kapelos, the custodian from The Breakfast Club, because they're still not done mining that movie). He's not all that willing to give them anything on who sold him the locket, supposedly because he doesn't give out that information, but I think it's because JJ's drawing of the locket is rubbish anyway. Daphne steps in with a "please" -- along with that pushing sound effect that's getting so familiar, as well as that stare she does that makes her eyes seem even farther apart. Suddenly the proprietor comes over all forthcoming, and goes to get them the cancelled check he paid for the locket with. Tractor beam deactivated!
Out on the street, JJ is suspicious of Daphne's new thing, now that he's seen her do it three times today. "Just leave it alone, JJ," she pushes, and JJ agrees to do so. But a second later he realizes that she's Incepting people when they're fully awake. It just doesn't work on him because of his super brain. But now he wants them to go use her power to lean on Kyle Rainey, the guy who sold the locket to the antique dealer...ten years ago. This is quite the serpentine chain of custody they're backtracing.
At the lab, Stephanie accidentally busts Katie taking a sample of the plant. Katie says that Joshua needs it for reasons she can't disclose, but Stephanie's invocation of Wonder Woman's magic lasso gets Katie to come clean. What, being a female The Flash isn't enough for Stephanie any more now? Stephanie's shocked to learn that Joshua's a super, but she seems to get over her annoyance when Katie appeals to her for help on behalf of her and Joshua both, saying she doesn't know what Joshua is, but she loves him. I feel the same way about most Thai food.
At the lair, George walks in to find Jim coming up empty on his AFIS search of the print he lifted, saying the woman from the apartment doesn't seem to exist. And this database contains every fingerprint of every person ever? George does something rather strange: he pulls a pistol out of his briefcase and levels it at Jim's back. Wait, that's not George, it's Charlotte as George! So tricky! Forge bounces a bullet off of Jim's back, much to Jim's chagrin -- which doesn't come close to matching Forge's chagrin when Jim, unharmed, angrily takes the gun away and twists it into an L-shape, yelling at who he still thinks is George. Forge stutters excuses, and says [s]he'll be right back after a snack run. But before actually closing the door behind him, [s]he takes a moment to change back into Charlotte, because telegraphing to us idiots what just happened is more important than avoiding the risk of Jim turning around right then and busting her. Also, for a metamorphosis from one good-looking person to another, those in-between stages were pretty hideous.
After the ads, Real George comes in talking about a victory in court, which doesn't really fit with the story Forge told Jim. Jim mentions the earlier shooting, and I laugh out loud when George says, "Maybe it was someone else. You know, we don't all look alike, Jim." Jim slowly figures out that one of the Georges wasn't the real deal, and remembers that Stephanie recently met a shapeshifter. And as for earlier today, "Maybe I didn't lose her on the street after all." Look who's suddenly quick on the uptake. That still leaves the question as to why she'd shoot someone who's bulletproof, and George guesses that she didn't know until she did it -- you don't spy on someone you know everything about, after all. What would be the point? Not that pointless activity is always a dealbreaker on this show.
Charlotte is back in King's office, talking about her failed mission. Just then Jim shows up on one of the security monitors, which tells them he's right there in the building. "I'm sure he's just looking for his wife," Charlotte says, and King significantly replies, "See that he finds her." They smirk at each other's cleverness.
Sure enough, Stephony intercepts Jim in the halls. Seemingly none the wiser, Jim tells her about his earlier encounter with Forge (like she wasn't there) and that the shapeshifter is trying to find their Kryptonite. "How do you know she hasn't already?" Stephony asks. Jim says, "Because I'm still alive and you're--" He suddenly comes over all suspicious, and she rattles off stuff about the Jonathan Franzen, energy bars, and lavender oil. Totally convinced by this knowledge that could have been gleaned by the clumsiest home invader (and in fact, was), Jim hugs her, and she says they can't talk about their powers with anyone. Which is when Jim goes right ahead and talks about how they'll be fine as long as nobody finds out about his weakness for her lip stuff, which he describes in specific detail to the person he thinks is his wife, just to be safe. Man, this is a real meeting of the minds.
At night, JJ and Daphne walk right into the garage of some guy who's out working on his Jeep. That would be Kyle Ramey, the guy who sold the locket to the antique store lo these many years ago. They're just starting to talk to him when his wife comes out with a drink for him. She's quite friendly, until JJ drops Natalie's name and they both recognize it. Kyle dismisses Wifey back to the house so he can handle this, and she actually goes. The kids suddenly realize that Ramey was the other coworker who was shot the night Natalie's mom was killed. He's in rather a hurry to get rid of them, but just then the wife comes out with drinks for the kids as well. When she hands Daphne's over, their fingers touch, triggering a Daphne-vision memory of the night Natalie's mom was shot -- by Wifey herself, because Kyle was having an affair with Natalie's mom. The locket that started all this was left resting on the dead woman's cheek, just lying there as if in invitation for Kyle to nab it and sell it using his own name. And the police never solved this case? No wonder Jim has been taking over so much of their workload. Daphne covers her shock about as badly as possible, and Wifey is suddenly more suspicious of her than even JJ is, who's too dumb to take her hint to follow her outside with her cell phone.
At the precinct, George reports to Jim that the prints, while not in the criminal database, were in social services and belong to one Amelia Hammond, an orphan who was eventually adopted by none other than Dr. King. Her name's Amelia, now? How many names does this chick get? Jim gets a distress call from Daphne, telling him to come to 21 Rush Hill Road. Wifey comes up behind her, supposedly to bring her iced tea but really to pistol-whip her to the ground. I would have preferred the iced tea, and I don't even like iced tea.
Wifey drags Daphne back into the garage and closes the door, while JJ and Kyle freak out. She gets ready to shoot JJ, but suddenly the garage door gets yanked off from outside, like the foil lid on a takeout lasagna. Dad's here! Jim tosses it aside, and uses one foot to kick the Jeep and bounce it off Kyle and Wifey, leaving them unconscious and pinned to the back wall. Daphne comes around in time to ask what happened, and JJ's excited narrative ends quickly with a look from Jim. "Well talk about this later. The cops are on their way. Let's go." Well as classic dad utterances go, it's no "I will turn this car around," but it'll do.
Stephanie presents herself at Joshua's place to tell him she's going to help him. She's working on a counter-serum that'll get rid of his symptoms -- but his powers as well. A bit suspiciously, Joshua wonders what's expected of him in return. She says she's doing this for her family, which counts Katie. "If you ever do anything to harm her, there'll be no serum to protect you from me." Okay, nice visit! And nice of Joshua to be hanging out at his place in a black suit and shirt in case anyone stopped by.
Back at the Powell Pad, Jim is ripping his kids matching new ones when in walks...their mom? The kiss she plants on Jim's mouth is a little too obvious and purposeful to miss, though, unless you're one of the people on the screen. Fortunately, Jim gets a phone call from the real Stephanie, saying she's leaving now. "Oookay," Jim stutters, trying to play it off After he hangs up, he pretends to Stephony like he's still fooled, and it was just George calling with George stuff. He sends the kids upstairs. JJ, clueless as always, protests, but Jim purposefully thinks at Stephanie, This would be the wrong time not to listen. Take your brother upstairs. Lock the door. Daphne leads JJ on up.
Once the adults are alone, Stephony says, "I'm guessing that wasn't George on the phone, "No, that was my wife," Jim agrees. Well, so much for playing it close. Charlotte shapeshifts back to herself and Jim makes with the threats, but Charlotte informs him that her kiss took away his superpowers. Jim's cool with that. "I'm pretty confident I can still kick your ass." "Probably," Charlotte agrees, then changes into a simulation of Jim and asks, "But can you kick yours?" Jim looks pretty alarmed. So Charlotte couldn't have shapeshifted into a pro wrestler? This way, the only advantage she has in the impending smackdown is that she's the only one of them who isn't afraid to break things in the house.
Sure enough, Jim takes the ad break to get his mojo back, saying that if he doesn't have powers right now, Sim doesn't either. She says he's clearly up on the shapeshifting rules, but she doesn't think she'll need his powers: "Once you're gone, how will anyone prove I'm not you?" Like that has anything to do with it. They make with the fighty-fighty, trashing the living room, but since they're identical, and we can't keep up with which one is Jim and which one is Sim, it's like watching a three-dimensional shell game with two bald heads in place of three coconuts. The only way we can tell them apart is by the dialogue that comes between the fighting. Jim tells Sim that they know more about King than [s]he thinks, and [s]he shoots back, "Then you must know that Dr. King has his eyes set on your wife. Why do you think he sent me here to kill you?" While Jim's taking that in, Sim brains him with a handy billiard ball. Just what we needed, a third hard, smooth sphere in the mix. After some more fighting, in which we again lose track of who's who, one of the Jims gets his head bounced off the stone fireplace hearth and bashed in with a fireplace poker. Gosh, which one was it?
So now we're back where we started the episode, with Stephanie coming home to the trashed house and crying over the Jim body. The living Jim comes down the stairs (where he was presumably comforting the kids, or else yelling at them some more, or else just pretending really badly to be Jim), says her name, and she recoils from both of them. Finally the body shifts back to Charlotte, like shapeshifters are supposed to when they die. See, I'm up on the rules too! Stephanie wonders what they're going to do now. I don't know, figure out how to make Charlotte posthumously shapeshift herself into a failed attempt at a large dinner?
Apparently they called Joshua, and he stashes the body in his trunk. Looks like Stephanie is getting something from him in return after all. Joshua admits that he knew Charlotte back in the day. "She was a friend...more than a friend, once upon a time." He seems more or less cool with her being dead now, though. He says he didn't tell her about him because it's too dangerous for them to get involved. Jim acts brave, but Joshua warns that this is bigger than King -- who will be coming after them when he finds out about the death of Charlotte (aka Victoria aka Amelia aka whatever other grandma-names you want to throw in there). Stephanie figures she can pretend to be Charlotte pretending to be Stephanie, if she only has a secret that Charlotte alone would know, preferably about King. A little late to think about that, isn't it? "I think I might be able to help you out with that," Jim says. Well, how convenient!
At school the day, JJ approaches Natalie, figuring there must be some feeling of closure now that her mom's murderer's been caught. "It won't bring my mother back," she shrugs. Not to mention she now probably knows that her mother was having an affair with a married coworker, but it's a little late in the episode to start delving into that. JJ fares better when she returns the locket, which he apparently stole back from the barista at some point in his spare time. Speechless, she just hugs him, long and hard. Until he is, too, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
King finds Stephanie in the hall, and she pretends to be Charlotte. Suspiciously, King asks her to "resume your normal form" so he can be sure it's her. Saying she needs to be careful, Char-not glances at the camera they're standing right under. "Besides, I thought you preferred this form," she flirts. King is suddenly pretty hot and bothered at that, but convinced; he asks what she found out about the Powells' powers, and she says she's close -- if she can just go back to Belem, Brazil to look into their origin story. And while she's at it, she adds that Stephanie should be brought in. Getting way up close, she says that Stephanie would do "absolutely anything for you." Shouldn't she hold off on that second suggestion until she gets back so King doesn't spend her entire absence looking for the real Stephanie? King is clearly moved by her argument, or at least by her boobs, and he agrees it's a good idea. And then Stephanie climbs down off of his giant boner to go look stressed out in private about what she's doing. Sure, she might be chock-full of morals, but if she isn't careful, at this rate it won't be long before she's also chock-full of King's man-glue.M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.
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