Nick Hanover: Last time, you expressed some concern over what might happen with Nate and Kelly and in my typical fashion I gave you some vague idea of what was coming. And basically, we got two straight episodes of Kelly having a problematic love life.
Felicity Gustafson: We did. I found it a little refreshing. There’s hardly much mention of Kelly in most of the episodes, so this was kind of her time to shine for a bit.
Nick: So tell me, Felicity, what did you think of ol’ Bruno?
Felicity: I liked Bruno. I mean, obviously there was something a little off by the way he acted, but I didn’t really guess what his affliction was. I figured it was just an aggressive/strength thing. But I thought he went well with Kelly.
Nick:Being a literal gorilla does tend to give you an aggression problem.
Felicity: Ha, true. I thought the King Kong reenactment was a nice touch.
Nick: Speaking of romantic problems, we also get a new, non-time travel spoiled love interest for Simon in Jessica, who we first meet after Nathan plays a bit of peeping tom on her at the rec center.
Felicity: Oh, Nathan getting killed for being a perv. You knew it had to happen eventually.
Nick: For all we know it wasn’t the first time.
Felicity: I didn’t really feel much for Jessica. Her character seemed rather unimportant. I mean, I felt bad because of the overprotective father, but she was just a standard chick.
Simon was adorable with his little crush though.
The last two episodes were a huge leap for his character. You can really see how he’s starting to change into the Simon from the future.
Nick: Simon has definitely come into his own, and it’s interesting that even with the Future Simon angle gone, he still managed to be one of the most interesting characters in the episode, despite it not really being about him.
Weirdly, the B-story with Kelly was probably the better storyline in this outing as I agree with you completely about Jessica.
Felicity: Yeah, it did seem like Simon and Kelly were stealing the lime light. Part of Simon’s charm is that he’s passive, but still has enough depth to make the audience pay attention to him. I can’t really put my finger on why I like Kelly though.
Though her constant insistence that she’s not a slag before jumping into bed with guys is rather amusing.
Nick: Part of it for me is that you’re tricked into thinking she’s an idiot, just because of her style and speech, but she’s not at all.
Felicity: Right on the money. I completely agree. She’s got that inner little girl that you can’t hate and she’s an important part of the crew.
Nick: She saves them pretty often because her ability is a lot more useful than Curtis’ or Alisha’s, so even though she comes off as a bit trashy, you still have to respect her, especially since she keeps her cool better than most of the team.
Felicity: I still say Alisha’s talent is pretty much useless unless you want to be a rape victim. Out of all of them, I think only Simon and Kelly manage to keep their heads straight in a crisis. Curtis can sometimes. Nathan just turns into a total drama queen, but you can’t quite hate him for it.
Nick: I love that this series refuses to let any of them be true powerhouses or clear cut heroes.
Felicity: Well, then they wouldn’t be misfits. The fact that the heroes are flawed is probably what I enjoy the most about this show.
Nick: What did you think of Nikki in this episode?
Felicity: Hmm, I didn’t really think much of her either way. I honestly forget she’s on the show half the time. Her character falls a little short of all the others.
Nick: Anyone is above Ollie! I agree though, she feels less developed. They make you think they’re going to do something interesting with her and it hasn’t really happened yet. But I suppose that’s possible in season three.
Weirdly, she has a potentially devastating ability, at least in comparison to the others.
Worst case scenario she just becomes the world’s best delivery person.
Felicity: If she can harness it anyway. Like Curtis, if she can’t use it, she might as well not have it. Though I have to admit, if all I had to do to go on vacation across the world was want it… Yeah, life would be good.
Nick: Perhaps Curtis and Nikki will help each other gain better control over their abilities in season three.
Felicity: That’s what I’m hoping. If they’re going to cling to each other, maybe they can help each other out.
Though at least Curtis seems to be able to use his when he needs to.
Nick: I did something really mean there but you won’t get it until later.
Felicity: More vague teasers. You can’t see me, but I’m doing the frustrated sigh, haha.
Nick: Mwahahaha.
Felicity: So overall, I’d say I have to agree with what you said last time. Episode 5 was pretty good, but didn’t hold up to the amazingness of episode 6.
Nick: Exactly. In fact, episode six is almost problematic in how good it is because it kind of ruins the bulk of the episodes that came before it. I don’t know if the plan all along was to just lull us into complacency and then drop the bomb of the finale or what.
Felicity: It was mind blowing. I was worried that the writers were going to pull a Joss Whedon and kill off a beloved character, but I wasn’t prepared for the catastrophic events of… well, milk.
Nick: I love how Brian seems so benign and timid, and has what appears, on the surface, to be such a stupid, useless power. But through sheer determination and practice he turns it into something ridiculously effective…
Nick: …which is cool on its own but what’s more fascinating is how much of a contrast it is with our misfits, who don’t put much energy or effort into honing their abilities outside of Simon, I suppose.
Felicity: No, it starkly shows how they take everything for granted.
Nick: If Brian had a backpack full of milk, Curtis would have been toast.
Felicity: Hell, if they were in a cafe with those little creamers, he might’ve lost an eye.
Nick: Episode six is also an excellent display of how Simon is learning to use people’s underestimation of him to his advantage.
Felicity: True. He did get quite badass by the end of that episode, didn’t he? Though the one thing I couldn’t figure out is why he was in between Curtis and Brian in that hallway. That part didn’t make sense to me.
Nick: I think Simon knew Curtis was the only way to fix the situation, because if he took Brian out himself, everyone would still be dead and Curtis wouldn’t be in danger anymore and thus unable to use his power.
Felicity:Hmm, well that does make sense. Curtis seems ineffective unless it directly affects him. It was a pretty big gamble on Simon’s part.
Nick: True, but Simon is surprisingly big on taking gambles like that.
Felicity: You said that and I got the picture of him throwing those peanuts in my head…
Felicity: That’s true. I wonder why the rest of the crew never picked up on that. It’d be an interesting way to expand their powers.
Assuming they could survive it, of course.
Though I’m guessing it wouldn’t matter much in the next season.
Nick: It sort of gets addressed in the Christmas Special, but that’s all I’ll say. I had forgotten that part of the episode though, and seeing it again only made me irritated all over again about Robert Sheehan leaving the cast.
Felicity: Well, I knew he was leaving, so when Nathan was veggified in the finale episode, I was worried that he might actually stay like that. Literally, my face pulled a o________o.
Nick: They didn’t know Sheehan was leaving when they did this episode and the Special. It happened not too long before the production for season three was supposed to begin.
Felicity: Ah, I didn’t know that. Even so, it’s a good example of what conclusions can be jumped to if given knowledge of future events.
Nick: I also don’t know if you remember the cryptic hint I made about the finale regarding its similarity to The Sword, but now you see what I was getting at. Except in The Sword it was an ability to control water.
Felicity: True, there’s a couple series that have powers that are like that. The Last Airbender and Naruto being two of the first ones that pop into my head.
Felicity: I thought it was a little surprising. Most series I’ve seen that pull that type of thing leave the audience wondering if it was real and then do the ‘just kidding!’ time warp in the first episode of the next season. I’m wondering how the group will go on given that their community service is up. They won’t really have any reason to be together anymore.
Nick: For some reason, I think it may have been unclear whether the show would return for a third season when the finale was produced.
Felicity: If they were assuming there wouldn’t be a third season, it would make complete sense. And I appreciate the closure.
Nick: The Christmas Special does give a bit more of an explanation as to why they’d still be together.
Felicity: Nice to know that they tied up some of the loose ends.
Nick: So, what are we rating these?
Felicity: 4 stars for episode 5, 5 stars for episode 6.
Nick: That’s exactly what I was going to give them. And then next week, we actually get to do some real speculation!
Felicity:Yes!! Ha!
Nick: Which means I can’t torture you with vague spoilers anymore.
Sadness.
Felicity: You’ll still figure out some way, I’m sure.
Nick: Haha, I will try my damnedest!
Felicity: Of that, I have no doubt.