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Company Man Episode Review

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  • Company Man Episode Review

    This episode is very interesting in that it's so centered on the Bennet family and HRG in particular. This is a very ensemble-based show, and this is the only episode I can think of that focuses so intensely around a single character. True, we have Ted and Matt and Claude, as well as mentions of a bunch of others, including a short glimpse of Child!Hiro, but we saw nothing of Mohinder, Sylar, Micah, DL, Niki, Peter, Nathan, Present!Hiro, Ando, or anyone else. That said, I love this episode and think it worked perfectly. The missing cast didn't bother me, and when we came back to them in 1x18 I didn't feel like we'd skipped a week with them at all.

    So Mr. Muggles knows to bark at Ted and Matt, but can’t figure out that Sylar is bad news? Huh. I do like the initial couple lines, though: “Think we’ve had enough of that!” “No, no, don’t, don’t, don’t!!” “I’m not going to nuke the dog…” Ted is great in this episode. He really seems like the perfect personality to have the nuclear ability. He’s not bad, per se, but very unstable, and very willing to go to extreme lengths without thinking he’s out of line. Very intense, and when he gets going, he’s pretty much unstoppable. And through all of his hostage taking and threats of violence, his personal back story is so human that you still don’t dislike him. What would anyone do if one day they literally became a danger to society, through no fault of their own, and ended up unwillingly killing their wife? It’s unfortunate that Ted’s so unhinged at this point, but can you blame him?

    Very interesting choice to show all of HRG’s personal back story in black and white. It’s not like 15 years ago was so long that color film hadn’t been invented, but having it that way made everything feel very cold, and very detached. The Company doesn’t let emotions cloud their decisions, and everything is very black and white to them, there is no gray (with the exception of certain “morally gray” decisions), there is no color, it’s Normal People and Abnormal People. There are set rules of how to deal with certain situations, and those rules are never to be questioned. The fact that present day is in color and HRG has now grown to love his Claire-Bear and actively hide and protect her from The Company speaks to how he has grown as a human being and as a father. As a side note, I also like that he starts out without glasses. It’s too easy to base the entire character around them and identify him at all times with them, but they choose to show us an HRG with no HRGs. When his character is literally referred to by those glasses, it’s gutsy as a show to take them away from him, even just for one episode. Then again, you could make the case for this episode telling us the story of how he came to be HRG, the glasses symbolizing his Company Man mentality. He was more than a dispassionate bag-and-tagger at one time, and he became HRG through years of “morally gray” acts.

    I also love that the episode after we lose Present!Claude we get him back for an extra flashback episode. Nicely done, especially since we already know they knew each other and we were starting to get curious as to the back story between them.

    The scene between Matt and Claire in HRGs study is very nicely handled. Just enough info is shared plausibly that I can believe they trust each other later, but it’s not a densely packed two minutes of solid exposition. Peter Petrelli comes up, Save The Cheerleader comes up, and Claire’s power of healing. That’s all we needed, and that’s all they showed us. Nice and concise.

    Awesome rooftop scene at the Deveaux building. Interesting to know HRG had only been with The Company for a year before Claire came along. I also loved Child!Hiro playing the old school Gameboy. Very cool that they have HRG speak Japanese, and so cool that they bring Kaito Nakamura back as an insider at The Company. And we all thought he was just an obnoxious father the last time we saw him! This makes him so much more interesting and watchable.

    Hayden is so impressive in the stand-off scene with Ted, her mom, and all the guns. Wow. And my heart breaks for Sandra as she scoops her daughter up off the floor. Claire’s back-from-the-dead scene upstairs is also very well done, and I especially liked her coughing out the bullet. Nice touch. Only problem is the bright red vampire mouth Hayden then has to act through for the rest of the scene. Makes it harder for me to take her seriously, because, come on, let’s face it, it does look kind of comical.

    Young!Claire is adorable! Hayden plays a couple years younger very nicely. Most people end up playing younger in a very silly way, but she manages to shave 7 or 8 years off without acting like a baby. And the hair is just so cutely reminiscent of Remember The Titans that I can’t complain about this scene at all. Plus, the awesome shot of HRG as he puts on his glasses for the first time and we get that from-behind establishing shot… Very nice. Very nice.

    And the final scene on the bridge is heartbreaking, too. This gives Hayden the Weepy Blonde Moment-of-the-Week award. Both she and Jack are so good, and they have such wonderful father-daughter chemistry. Kudos to both parties.

    Bits and Pieces:

    * I love how Baby!Claire’s hand plays with HRGs face when he first holds her. It’s always nice to see a real baby in a shot instead of a pile of blankets wrapped to look like the size and shape of a baby. I know the little ones are hard to work with, so I appreciate the realism that much more.
    * Love the way Child!Hiro gives an absent-mided shove of his glasses up his nose at the end of his scene, and the Baby!Claire smile is the cutest thing I’ve seen in awhile.
    * I loved meeting The Young!Hatian. And it’s interesting that they described him as mute. Was he really mute initially? Or was he faking it from the beginning? And if he was faking it, when did HRG figure out he could talk? After the Claire ordeal, or before? Did he only talk to HRG before he got chatty with Claire? Nice continuity: The Young!Haitian has the helix necklace on. Now I’m just insanely curious—how did he get it in the first place?
    * Funny line: “He doesn’t want the truth, he wants his wife back. Short of that he wants revenge, of the good old biblical variety.”
    * Ooh, The Haitian has a bigger boss than HRG, and it’s someone in Claire’s life… whoever could it be?
    * Claude was hiding someone with abilities from The Company. When do we get to meet this person, and what do you think they can do? What’s their relationship with Claude?
    * The bridge scene is well-acted by both parties. I particularly like how surprised HRG looks when he first fires on Claude, like even he didn’t think himself capable of it until after he’d already pulled the trigger.
    * If just living around LowLevel!Ted gave his wife an aggressive case of cancer, how did FreakingOut!Ted not burn up and tumor-ize Matt and HRG, as well as everyone within a couple miles of the Bennet home?
    * Filming the FreakingOut!Ted scene must have been a little awkward for Matthew John Armstrong. I know I’d feel kind of silly thrashing around and screaming like that with nothing actually happening.
    * Did everyone notice the helix in the glass of the front door of the Bennet home as Ted is going nuclear, just as HRG runs out of the house?
    * The special effects of Claire rebuilding herself as she comes out of the house are really great. I’m just amazed her hair wasn’t burned off, and if it was, I’m even more amazed that it healed perfectly curled. Now that’s a cool power.
    * We meet Candice! Although it’s not really a true introduction at all, just a glimpse. We’ll come back to her later.

    Til next episode, or visit my website for more reviews!
    GoldenGait
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