Monday Night TV

NBC tried an underhanded trick to ruin what could be a nice night of television by having Heroes run a minute long so my DVR won't record the 10:00 Riches and then I'll watch that Wedding Crashers reality show. Fat chance. All they accomplish is that I wait another hour to start watching everything, shortening the gap between Heroes and the 11:00 Riches, skipping more commercials in the process. Sure, I don't have a Nielsen box, so they don't lose anything from it, but I feel like it's a moral victory. Spoilers for those two shows plus Drive after the jump.

Drive: The movie doesn't turn out nearly as informative as I'd hoped, but for improving the most from checkpoint one to checkpoint two, Alex and Corrina get a head start, letting them skip the next checkpoint. But there's a price to pay for their lead: when they arrive at their destination, they find that they have to rob a bank to get their next clue or whatever.


Winston and Sean decide it'd be faster to just follow them. We learn in the process that Winston was in jail for armed robbery. Which is convenient, since they're tailing someone who needs help in committing armed robbery. Even more convenient, Sean seems to be some kind of hacker. Not the real kind, where it takes actual effort and preparation to break into a computer, but the movie kind where you can sit down and type for a few minutes and gain access. The bank heist is surprisingly easy, until a cop shows up, shoots Sean, and Sean shoots the cop, Dear Sister-style.

Wendy gets a call from Cindy Williams saying her kid might be in trouble. Does this mean Laverne (or Shirley? I never watched that show) doesn't work for the race, and that Wendy just ditched the baby with a friend or something? I dunno, but Wendy decides she wants to quit the race and save her baby. But Ivy wants that money, and amusingly doesn't know how to drive, so she pulls her gun and is forcing Wendy to continue.

Rob checks in with his commanding officer and discovers what Ellie had been hiding from him. Turns out his unit shipped out two weeks ago, so she'd been hiding it for quite a while, huh? Anyway, he's got a court-martial waiting for him if he ever goes back, so Rob is pissed enough to throw the race phone out the window. No idea where this leaves them, but subsequent events lead me to believe that people don't drop out of the race very easily.

Which brings us to Leigh and Susan, Ivy's old partners. They kept coming to Rome, GA, after getting their tires shot out and abandoned by one of their partners, but when they finally make it there, they're told that it's too late. Susan says God has been speaking to her, and that they have to continue. Conveniently, someone just threw their race phone out the window, so now they're back in. Less convenient is the fact that someone runs them off the road shortly after. With her last breath after the wreck, Susan says that God told her that Leigh was going to win. On a mission from God, eh?

It's 106 miles to Appomattox, Leigh's got a full tank of gas, a half a pack of cigarettes... and actually she has none of those things. But she is hitching to Appomattox. Our bank robbers are trying to save Sean, who's now passed out, and Alex has some kind of plan involving a motel. Actually a bit of an improvement over last week, but I was hoping for more. It's still interesting, but Drive hasn't made the leap into can't-miss territory yet. But speaking of can't-miss....

Heroes: Oh, how I've missed it. Hiro has his sword but is trapped in post-disaster New York, Linderman makes an offer Nathan might not be able to refuse, Primatech has Parkman in custody, Claire is on the run, and what everyone's really excited about: the Sylar-Peter face-off. So naturally we pick up with an obviously fake version of Claire trying to mess with Bennett's head and an evil speech from Eric Roberts. But Candice is still really hot, so I don't mind the tease.


Nathan and Linderman are still discussing their proposal. Linderman shows off his own power, which is to heal things. At least plants, but it'd be a boring power if it was just that. But Linderman gives his "here's why I'm evil" speech, and I'm guessing almost every comic book fan watching found the whole thing disturbingly familiar, except that his office has fancy Japanese artifacts instead of Egyptian. Hopefully, it's just an homage and doesn't turn the series into a complete ripoff. I don't think we heard Nathan's response, but he's certainly considering it.

We finally pick up with the big fight. Peter quickly recovers from the telekinetic buzzsaw to the forehead, uses some telekinesis of his own, and turns invisible, but Sylar sends shards of glass in all directions, and one goes through the back of Peter's skull, killing him. Mohinder knocks Sylar out and takes Peter's body and the list to Mrs. Petrelli... but did anyone think he wouldn't be coming right back to life?

It sounds like Mrs. Petrelli has some powers of her own, and had a bad experience in Linderman's old group of crime busters or whatever, so she wants to keep Claire away from that world until she can make an informed choices. But they leave us hanging as to what Mrs. Petrelli's powers are. When Peter's body shows up, he comes back to life pretty quickly, and Claire gets to meet her father. They share a familial moment, but they hint with some ominous music that he wants Claire to run to Paris not to protect her from the hero mess, but because he's going to go along with Linderman.

Sylar shows up at Isaac's studio, and of course Isaac knows he's coming. So we finally see Isaac's death that Hiro saw so early on. But Isaac ships off a bunch of his artwork before he dies, and implies that that will show everyone how to kill Sylar.

Bennett thinks loud enough to give Parkman instructions on how to break out, and Parkman finds out something scary on the way out, stopping to pick up nuclear Ted. The plan is for Ted to generate an EMP to get them out. Which apparently only Bennett knew he could do. But it works. And they discuss their future plans at the Burnt Toast Cafe, naturally. We get the amusing revelation that Bennett's a middle manager and knew nothing about his organization. Their plan is first to go to New York to destroy the system that tracks powered people, then go after Linderman (who, in the least interesting subplot, has just kidnapped Micah).


We conclude with Hiro and Ando in the future. Hiro decides that the way to prevent the disaster it is to figure out their mistakes from the future before traveling back to fix them. When poking around for clues in Isaac's apartment, he finds his own future self, perfect English and all, who seems unhappy to see our more familiar Hiro, and that's where we leave off.

I'm a little concerned about the lack of originality from the villain (I'm being vague because comic book fans will know what I'm talking about, while those not in the know might find the comic and its inevitable movie adaptation at some point in the future to be less fun if they're thinking the bad guy is just like Linderman the whole time... but if you're curious, and don't mind spoilers, click on this link for the bio of the Linderman-like character), but the show is still slickly done and exciting, so I'll try not to think too much about it.

The Riches: Dale calls Dahlia in (fake) tears to report on his father's death. Dahlia was close to Earl, so she wants to go to the funeral, which means scrounging up some cash to pay back at least most of the money they stole so that Dale won't immediately kill them.


The Malloys aren't exactly greeted warmly when they return home by anyone except Dale's mother. Lots of menacing glares and even a little spitting at their feet. After the funeral, two big things going on: traveler funerals are frequently accompanied by traveler weddings so Di Di's in trouble, and Dahlia confronts Dale about Earl's death.

It doesn't take much to figure out that Earl's guilty, so Dahlia tries to convince everyone else, but Dale's mother is in denial, so all Dahlia can do is get really pissed, shoot holes in Dale's roof, and leave.

Between selling out the location of the Malloys to Dale, and the fact that Dahlia's out of state on parole, Ginny has the family by the balls, but Di Di can't quite say "I do" ("No, I can't. What the hell is wrong with you people?" is the closest she can get). Still, Ginny won't sell them out if Di Di fulfills Ken's dream to "consummate." There is no "I" in team, but their might be an "ewwww," cause Di Di sounds willing to bite that bullet. But when Ken comes in to enjoy his non-wedding night, Di Di explains the situation, and Ken shows that while his sister might be a huge bitch, he's still a pretty nice guy, and refuses to go along with the blackmail. Whew.

But you have to feel for Ken, who could've had his dream come true, but has his heart broken instead, and even though his entire family being a bunch of evil bastards, he's still a good guy. And his reward for his good deeds is a savage beating from Dale, who now knows that Ken knows where the Malloys live.

A lot more intense than usual, but not as funny either, which is an ok trade off. Lots of great scenes for people other than Wayne, which is a nice change from him normally stealing the show. As with every episode, I think, since the pilot, it wasn't perfect, but still pretty good.