Scams for Everyone!

I meant to post this last Wednesday, but things came up. Anyway, I haven't done one of these hypothetical teams in over a year, so what the hell. Got to post something. This go-round is focus on sneaky characters that like to pull cons. So figure they're going to pull some sort of heist or scheme to bamboozle and rip-off some rich scumbag.

The Leader: Stan Pines, aka Mr. Mystery (Gravity Falls) - Stan spent years traveling from state-to-state, selling cheap, fraudulent products to gullible saps, who then ran him out of town once they realized the products were garbage. He eventually wound up running a "Mystery Shack", house of oddities and cheap junk in a weird town to pay the bills while he spent 30 years figuring out how fix a busted transdimensional portal his twin brother created, then subsequently fell through. Which means he taught himself whatever science, math, and engineering skills you'd need to accomplish something like that.

Stan is your typical guy who hides his softer feelings under the gruff asshole veneer. The guy who may do something nice for another person, but acts as though he's doing it just to shut them up. He's pretty good at improvising on the fly, and he understands people well enough to get them to shell out money to look at a trout he superglued to a rabbit.  He will encourage the youngest member of the team's interest in scamming people, while also trying to protect them if things go wrong. Probably won't be necessary, but he'll do it.

He knows about the supernatural and the weird, even if he pretends not to, so the odder members of this group won't phase him too much. He's also committed a wide array of actual crimes, from stealing nuclear waste, to smuggling pugs across national borders, to tax fraud. Lots of tax fraud.

The Rogue: Darien Fawkes, aka the Invisible Man (The Invisible Man) - Darien was a cat burglar even before he got a biosynthetic gland in his brain that lets him turn invisible. Even once he had the gland, he didn't stop criminal activities entirely. Gotta scratch that itch, even if there's not much challenge to it. And he was totally on board with the Official's plan to rob Arnaud's casino by having Darien invisibly rig the games for the rest of the Agency.

Of course, Darien then proceeded to go and straight up rob the vault to scratch that itch - and flip Arnaud the bird - then wouldn't give the money to the Official when he demanded it, even if it meant Darien went into Quicksilver Madness. Which happened, because Darien wouldn't back down, either. So Darien is: sneaky, willful, stubborn, and doesn't always think things through.

Fortunately, I don't think Stan is going to dissuade Darien from stealing to his heart's content, as long as it isn't from Stan. Actually, Stan's biggest objection might be if Darien tries to help him win at a casino. Stan might take that as slander against his skills. This would probably have to take place after the end of the series, when Darien doesn't have to worry about Quicksilver Madness, since there's no one on this group that's going to be able to fix that for him. Unless he's moonlighting with this bunch while still working for the Agency, but he's not careful enough to pull that off without Hobbes or the Official figuring it out.

The Muscle: Toph Beifong, aka the Blind Bandit, aka the Runaway (Avatar: The Last Airbender) - The greatest earthbender in the entire world. Can bend metal with a little more effort. Blind since birth, mostly doesn't let it bother her, will make jokes about it when the opportunity presents itself. Ran a series of scams taking advantage of people pitying or underestimating her because she's blind. Sees by sensing vibrations through the ground. Which does leave her a little vulnerable if she's not on solid ground. Extremely stubborn and headstrong. On the other hand, her ability means Darien is never going to be invisible to her, which will be a lot of fun for her, and extremely humiliating for him. She can also use the ability like a lie detector, which ought to be fun for annoying at least a couple of the other people on the team.

When Toph gets it in her head to do something, or not do something, almost no one has any chance of changing her mind. Like Stan, kind of a gruff asshole. The kind of person who shows affection by punching you in the shoulder. it took her a while to get the hang of being a team player with Team Avatar. Which means it's either going to be a struggle in the early stages with this group as well, or she's learned from her experiences and will embrace teamwork more readily. The rest of the team is adults (more or less), and she hasn't always had the best of luck with adults. Once she demonstrates she can take care of herself, it should be fine. At some point, Stan will ask her to create and animate some stone statues he can market as "terrible rock people" for another attraction. It'll work great until Toph makes them start attacking and fake eating people.

For all that she can be sneaky when she feels like it, Toph usually likes to settle things more directly and loudly. Pick a fight, hit people with rocks, that kind of thing. She and the next member of the team ought to get along like a house on fire.

The Lady of Mystery: Fiona Glenanne, aka More Aliases Than I Care to List (Burn Notice) - Granted, Fi frequently didn't have patience for Michael's elaborate schemes to hoodwink people, preferring the direct approach of just shooting or blowing them up. That doesn't mean she wasn't any good at playing a role to get something from them. Play on their libido, play on their stupidity, their sympathy. Get them to underestimate her, or just scare the crap out of them.

But, if you can frame it as making bad people miserable by taking the things they cherish most - money - she can probably get into the spirit of it. Especially if she's allowed to incorporate explosions. Between Darien and Stan, I'm not sure which of the two is going to be better able to recognize how dangerous she is. Stan fancies himself a bit of a ladykiller, and while Darien definitely thinks he's charming, I think he's worked with enough dangerous ladies he's not going to make the mistake of underestimating her.

Like I said, though, she and Toph should get along great. Probably hit the limits of their patience for the sneaky stuff or playing nice about the same time. Then it'll be time to break stuff, since no one is going to be able to rein in the two of them at once. Although Fiona might try to rein herself in a little bit with a pre-teen involved. Maybe.

The Guy with a Boat: Jimmy James, aka Macho Business Donkey Wrestler (Newsradio) - Technically, I only know the Mr. James has a news helicopter that he uses to fly back to his mansion for lunch, but he's loaded, I'm sure he has a yacht somewhere.

He's a successful businessman, so probably not unaccustomed to questionable practices. He also kept D.B. Cooper's duffel bag full of money after the guy parachuted into his camp, and kept that secret, plus the secret of who Cooper actually was, for decades until he was hauled into court. There's also the fact that he was apparently unfazed by a guy parachuting into his camp and asking to borrow his truck in exchange for a duffel bag full of money.

Totally willing to make wagers with other wealthy men, which is the sort of thing that encourages underhanded tactics. And he's not above being sneaky himself, like when he got his radio station back from Johnny by picking Johnny as the one employee he got to take with him. Anytime you can get your opponent to say, "Well played," you know you made a slick move. Or so I've been taught by popular culture. I'm not sure I've ever gotten someone to tell me that. Perhaps one day.

I'd expect he might want to take the reins, since he might be the richest person on the team - depending on whether Toph has access to her family's fortune. And Jimmy can be intimidating at times, but he's also savvy enough to know when that's a lost cause. So he might be smart enough to realize trying to order around this bunch is a terrible idea. That lets him stay in the background, make his own plans, and he can offer some insights when he thinks it would be helpful. That can be a fun job, to be the one who helps finalize plans, rather than having to come up with them from scratch or make decisions. So much less stressful.

The Invisible Man 2.22 - The New Stuff

Plot: A farmer watches his entire cornfield get devoured by a swarm of bugs he can't see. And so the Official sends Darien and Hobbes to investigate, figuring it has something to do with all that Quicksilver Chrysalis made off with. The meeting is a little tense because Claire is extremely hostile towards the Fat Man. So Darien and Hobbes make their inquiries of the farmer, who is drinking heavily because no one will believe him, though he did collect several of the bugs after they died and became visible again. The questioning is broken up as Darien starts going Quicksilver Mad, prompting a rush back to the Agency.

The boys are pretty concerned, Darien stating Claire will have to start giving him two shots a week, and that's when Claire drops the bombshell: Arnaud did give her enough to remove the counteragent dependency, and that shot she just gave Darien is the last he'll ever need. Right on cue, the Fat Man arrives, with another agent, weapon drawn. I assume he must have bugged Claire's lab. The Official tries to justify it, but Darien Quicksilvers, suckerpunches the agent, and flees, while Hobbes refuses to make any attempt to catch him. Out in the world, Darien robs a bank, but finds the lack of challenge a problem, and leaves the money across the street.

Elsewhere, Stark is about to be replaced as head of his Sector by his boss, despite his arguing that he's furthered their goals. She points out he's been constantly thwarted by the Agency, Stark apparently already knows Darien broke with them, and assures her they're no threat. Back in the world of people who aren't jerks, Hobbes comes to Darien's apartment to ask for him to come back, and sees Fawkes packing a suitcase. Bobby spouts some stuff about the Fruit of Righteousness, and Darien won't go back to being a thief, and Darien agrees. He also acknowledges that he'd always be hunted if he ran, so he's taken a different path: He called the FBI and asked for a job, so here's Jonesy. Did I say we were back in a world of people who aren't jerks? Ooops.

Hobbes is dismayed, but Darien's tries to do his buddy a solid by asking the new boss to a) hire Bobby at the same GS-9 level as Darien and b) transfer Jonesy to Alaska. But Hobbes refuses, stating he'll get back to the majors on his own. Uh, given your Prozac prescription, probably not. As you might expect, life at the FBI ain't so great. Everyone kisses up to him, but none of them respect his intelligence. They get a tip about a genetic research lab having been burned down by an eco-terrorist group, except that corn field was genetically modified corn, and when Darien mentions Chrysalis, all the feds just laugh, and tell him to stick to his trick. So Darien steals evidence from their room and seeks out Claire, who has gone to work for the CDC. She's not entirely happy to see him, but agrees to help, though they have to sneak back into the Agency lab because Claire had done some analysis on the locusts they brought back from the initial field. What Claire discovered is that the locusts have a protein deficiency and they can only eat genetically modified foods, and that company was combining a couple of plant forms with uses in medicine to create what might just be a cancer treatment drug. Which Chrysalis would not want, since that would help people who aren't them survive.

They grab Hobbes and find the main field where the stuff is being grown, though they have to elude a bunch of rude MPs in Humvees, first with the van, then with scooters. The scientists are somewhat skeptical until they can hear a huge swarm of insects heading towards them, and luckily they do keep a crop duster nearby, in case swarms of insects pass by. The crops are saved, everyone celebrates, then big dead bugs start falling on everyone, which puts a damper on things. Back at the Agency, Darien agrees to return, with conditions, including the right to be lazy. Oh, and Claire gets hired back with a bigger budget to research getting the gland out of his brain. And she and Hobbes get raises. The Official has to get the last laugh by telling them he was the guy who tipped the feds off about the eco-terrorist group attacking the lab, so that Darien would get sucked in and bring the team back together. Which makes Darien, Claire, and Bobby, all want to get drunk. And there it ends.

Quote of the episode: Hobbes - 'I guess you can't see so good in those FBI sunglasses.'

The "oh crap" count: 5 (47 overall). That's 9 more than last season, though a lot of people stole it from Darien this year.

Who's getting quoted this week? Albert Camus said real generosity to the future meant giving all to the present, Cole Porter argued work was more fun than fun (which is a load of crap), and Ray Bradbury said he wasn't trying to describe the future, but to prevent it.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 1 (10 overall). Just one more than last season, although a lot of Season 1's came in the pilot. But most of this season's were concentrated in these last few weeks.

Other: The Agency got dropped by Health and Human Services sometime after Darien split, but rejoined Fish and Game at the end.

I kind of like how when the Official came barging into Claire's lab the first time, Claire got to essentially pull the 'I did it 35 minutes ago' on him. Not exactly, since it was more like 2 minutes, but Darien had no idea he was free (he was still too pissed at her acknowledgement that she'd lied at the end of last week), and I think the Fat Man was sure he still had a chance to control things. Though why he didn't equip that guy with thermals, well, I guess because he thought he was keeping Claire from severing the leash, not trying to contain a dog that was free.

Little surprised at Alex' complete absence from the final 3 episodes. Not bothered really, because I never felt like she quite fit in. She got too friendly to be antagonistic, but never quite friendly enough to not be antagonistic. I guess she was supposed to be the person who can't help needling others, but that's already kind of Darien, and the Fat Man does a pretty good job taking the wind out of Fawkes' sails.

If the locusts have a protein deficiency, how was Chrysalis keeping them alive long enough to do them any good? I mean, the bugs seem to die right after they devour a field, so if you give them food, they'll keel over once they eat it, right? How long can they go without food? I suppose if this were a realistic show, though, Chrysalis would just use lobbyists to remove funding from projects like this (since the military is guarding, the government has to have some coin sunk into it at some level. Actually, I'd wondered for awhile why Chrysalis hadn't used that influence to get the Agency shut down. It's always barely hanging on anyway. Put in a good word for another agency, shunt the funds that way. I actually thought that was the point of all the drastic budget issues they were having a while back, when Claire's equipment was being repossessed, but no.

Watching Hobbes and Fawkes fall out was interesting. The way Hobbes encourages Fawkes to be the bigger man, come back into the fold, only to find Darien signed on with the FBI. He was really hurt by that, it let Jonesy's barbs get him in a way they usually don't. Maybe because Darien wasn't there taking shots right back at Jonesy this time. Hobbes has been good for Darien, a maturing influence, to temper some of Darien's impulsive responses, but it works both ways. Darien is the one who lets Hobbes know he is respected and trusted, who has his back when people start taking shots. And Hobbes is the one who listens when Darien gets ideas, who doesn't dismiss them because he sees Fawkes as more than an ex-con with a special trick. They really lean on each other a lot, and for awhile, they're split. Darien is right to be pissed at the Fat Man (the guy was ready to have him killed rather than risk Darien falling into enemy hands). Hobbes is right to be hurt his best friend bails on him, even though I'd say Fawkes had the right idea overall, to stay legit, but find a place he thought would treat him better.

And when they meet at the remains of the lab, they argue past each other. Fawkes is convinced (because he has an ego) that Hobbes is there trying to get him back, and snarks at Hobbes along that line of thinking. Hobbes is actually there on business, but is angry Darien is kind of acting like the feds, treating Hobbes like he isn't a professional, and so he takes shots along that line. None of it accomplishes anything, other than letting each of them air grievances, though it does plant the seed of doubt in Darien's mind that makes him split off from the feds.

For that matter, I like that when Darien approaches Claire, she's a standoffish at first. Darien can be mad she withheld the cure, but she did it to try and protect him. The Official had flat out stated he wasn't letting the gland leave, no matter what, which put Darien's life at risk. But when she saw how his life would be ruined if she didn't get him off the counteragent, she went for it. To save him, and because she believed he would stay. That's what she told the Official last week, that Darien wouldn't leave. And he left. He had his reasons, and she may have been aware he joined the FBI, but I think Claire (like Hobbes) has watched Darien change, and when he Quicksilvered and ran, I'm sure she wondered if all that progress just went up in smoke. If he was going to return to crime strictly out of spite, or maybe because that's who he'd always been, and everything he'd seemed to become over their time as coworkers was just him doing what was necessary, the long con. Not unlike what Arnaud pulled on the Agency. Oh, and it probably didn't help that she lost her job when he vanished.

I hadn't seen this episode in over a decade, but I really thought a lot more of it would involve Darien being chased by the Agency. Guess I was conflating it with the end of Season 1. Credit to Darien for recognizing he wouldn't be able to run. Even if the Agency never caught him, it would get out among the rest of the intelligence network, and everyone would be after him. The Chinese lost their Quicksilver-recycling vest, after all. And Chrysalis is still out there, not to mention Arnaud. It really does feel like this was set up to keep going into a 3rd season. The two big threats are still out there, but they'd recognized you can't play the counteragent dependency plot line forever, so they remove it and go forward.

But this is last episode. The thing that feels the most different to me compared to more recent shows, especially Burn Notice, is how there are major threats that span seasons, but they aren't constant. With Burn Notice, there was always whatever case Michael was handling that week, but some time was always devoted to him trying to get out from under the burn notice, or figure out who was behind it. With Invisible Man, we never see Chrysalis or Arnaud unless they are the threat that week. Whatever progress the Agency might be making in tracking them isn't mentioned in the interim, so it's almost like they don't exist. The closest we got in those terms was Augustin Gaither, as his arc actually popped up a few times when it wasn't the primary focus.

On the whole, the second season is about as up and down as the first. I still consider any episode with Arnaud a high point, because he and Darien have the most emotional weight to their interactions, and it's the character interactions that carry the show. Darien and Bobby's friendship, the way Claire seemed more drawn into it. She still had those moments where she's the Mature Doctor, exasperated at the boys, but it was less genuine irritation, and more a bemusement with her friends. Heck, the bit of fleshing out Eberts got, with Hobbes surprisingly enough, was nice. Next week, on to something different. Something much older.

The Invisible Man 2.21 - Enemy of My Enemy

Plot: So, Chrysalis is preparing to remove the Quicksilver gland from Arnaud's head, and they aren't particularly concerned whether Arnaud survives or not. But Arnaud isn't a complete idiot, and rigged all the medical personnel's fanny packs with explosives set to go off if his brain waves deviate too far from normal, or if he simply doesn't wake up soon enough. All of this amuses Stark, since he's not sticking around for the operation.

Back at the Agency, Hobbes is trying to build a voice control system into Golda, to turn her into a real battle van, complete with heavy weapons and armor plating. I wasn't aware that van had a strong enough engine to handle such added weight, but maybe Bobby's freakout last week convinced the Fat Man to open his checkbook. Anyway, this episode of Car Talk is interrupted by Eberts telling Fawkes there's a gift basket waiting for him, encouraging him to "Come See Me" at the Miracosa Vineyard. So off the boys go, and once again, despite knowing one of their greatest foes is an invisible man, Chrysalis has failed to outfit its goons with thermal glasses, so Fawkes sneaks right in, and finds Arnaud, and his gland. Except the gland isn't in Arnie's head any longer. It's out, and Chrysalis has cloned it - six times - and put those glands within cows, which they are milking for Quicksilver in a scheme Arnaud notes is 'surprisingly efficient, and strangely erotic.'

Let's all join Fawkes in side-eyeing Arnaud for that statement.

Arnaud wants out, because he's only being kept alive because the gland became dependent on his adrenaline, and thus, so are the cloned glands. So Chrysalis is basically milking him for adrenaline. Stiil, Darien repeatedly refuses to Quicksilver himself and Arnaud and escape, so they wind up captured, despite Darien Quicksilvering a machine gun to get the drop on a guard (he rounded the corner and found 5 more guards waiting with guns drawn). However, without Stark around, Chrysalis is sorely lacking in common sense, and they actually let Arnaud help the one guard they keep around sedate Darien so they can remove his gland. Instead Arnaud injects the guard with alcohol, and they actually escape. One problem once they're out: with his increased resistance to counteragent, Darien is now Quicksilver Mad, and he swiped the gun Arnaud had appropriated from that guard. All Arnaud can think to do, is promise that he can remove the counteragent dependency forever.

When Fawkes got caught, the goons went on high alert and spotted Hobbes, who was forced to flee, and needs to work on Golda's recognition of the word "stop", but he made it home safe, and the Official raised no objections to his demand for a fully armed assault team. Even Claire is coming along, in tactical gear and with a machine gun and everything. But before they can leave the hallway, Darien, still red-eyed, shows up with a wounded Arnaud. He exercised remarkable control and only shot him in the leg. In short order, Arnaud is locked up (after cluing everyone in to the fact that line Stark's wife fed them about Chrysalis was, in his words, 'bilge'), as Hobbes and the guys prepare to go back to the vineyard. But first, Darien needs to as Claire if what Arnaud said about a suicide gene in the gland sounds plausible. Claire agrees it does, and after some trepidation, brings Arnaud's laptop (last seen in "My Brother's Keeper") to him and orders him to get to work.

Eventually she removes a disk drive from the computer to see if he's really doing anything, and returns to her lab. Which is when Arnie decides it's time to escape, and we learn nobody took his computer apart and found the C-4 he hid in there. He makes a big show of refusing to work, sliding the laptop out of the cell, and it kills poor Mike the Guard. Claire hears the explosion and grabs her huge revolver, but ultimately leaves it in the hands of Eberts to try and save Mike's life (she doesn't). Eberts can't handle such firepower, and Arnaud immediately gets a taxi as he charges out of the building and heads for an airport.

Back at the vineyard, Stark still hasn't equipped anyone with thermals, even though he fully expects the Agency to return. But they've already shipped the Quicksilver by air, and are loading the cows onto a truck, which Hobbes stops with the .50 cal he had in the van. Everybody is feeling good, until the driver follows Stark's orders and blows up the truck. Fortunately, Bobby is unharmed, but they still need to find all that Quicksilver, which means it's back to the Agency to interrogate their prisoners. But first, Darien needs to check in with the Keeper. Now, as it turns out, Arnaud did enough before he left that Claire can remove his dependency on counteragent. Unfortunately, with Arnaud gone, and Mike dead, the Official wants to know why she gave Arnaud his laptop, and the Fat Man is not as excited at losing his leash on Darien as Claire is. He pins Mike's death on her, and basically promises he'll kill Darien before letting him off that counteragent leash, and says that will be Claire's fault as well. And so, when Darien asks, Claire says she wasn't able to get anything out of Arnaud. Darien tries to suck it up and go watch Hobbes interrogate. Claire, left alone in her lab, begins sobbing before something steels itself within her, to the point she cracks the syringe she's holding in her hand.

Quote of the Episode: Darien - 'See, I developed an itty-bitty immunity to your counteragent.' Arnaud - 'No, that's impossible.' Darien - 'You can't even screw up my brain right.'

The "oh crap" count: 3 (42 overall). Even one by Arnaud!

Who's getting quoted this week? Nobody!

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 1 (9 overall).

Other: Despite failing to recapture Arnaud, Eberts did at least get to dope slap him on the way to the cell.

When Hobbes opened the side panel of the van to reveal that machine gun, he said "Chrysalis this." Oh Bobby, that's horrible.

I'm a little disappointed there was no appearance of the Chrysalis Goon who always beats up Darien. Maybe next week. On the plus side, I like that when Darien returned to the vineyard, he tricked that one guard into thinking he'd Quicksilvered another machine gun when he was actually unarmed. Nice trick.

When Darien first snuck into the vineyard, he removed his jacket first, and I thought he was going to pretend to be one of the workers picking grapes to sneak by. Then he just went invisible.

Given his rush to the airport, I'm guessing this is the last time I'll get to gush over Joel Bissonnette as Arnaud. I always enjoy the back and forth between he and Darien, p[lus all his little mannerisms. When he's complaining that Chrysalis wouldn't share their gene therapy-aided immortality with him, and called them sociopathic little snobs, Darien responded, 'Pot, meet kettle.' Arnaud had this lovely little smile and shrug, kind of a, "yeah, guilty." I kind of love that, how Arnaud has such a high opinion of himself, but he never really argues when people express their feelings on what a lousy person he is. I don't think it's that he ignores what they say, or that he feeds off their hate. Well, maybe that second one a little bit. Given his ego, people expressing hatred for him means he's impacting their lives. He does have a little of that "kid who acts out for attention", but I honestly think a big part of it is that he doesn't see the things people dislike in him as detrimental, but as positive character traits that help him be successful.

Which is why it's so much fun when things don't go his way. The way he was patting his pockets, trying to find the gun after Darien got him out. The shock and surprise when he found out his counteragent wasn't working any more. His partner in "Diseased" noted that Arnaud was half a scientist, because he never thought things the whole way through. He never bothered to consider the possibility his counteragent might not work forever. Either because he didn't have a chance, because he was unable to get a gland to study longterm, or more likely because he just didn't care. The idea probably never entered his mind. And now it was going to get him killed.

Except it didn't. This is one of the things that bothers me about Quicksilver Madness, how inconsistently it's portrayed. Sometimes Darien's a goof, sometimes a maniac, or a horndog, or just cruel. And when he is Quicksilver Mad, he usually doesn't want to stop being that way, like when he was in Stage 5 at the end of Season 1. When he's in that headspace, where he sees no limits, and cares nothing for anyone else, he doesn't see anything wrong with it. It's only after he's bothered. So it's hard to see why he chose, as Arnaud put it, freedom over revenge. From Crazy Darien's perspective, he's already free. Kill Arnaud, Hobbes isn't around, escape and do as you wish forever.

I guess I'm a little disappointed Darien will never get to finish Arnaud off, unless I'm pleasantly surprised next week. Also, I'm a little sad we didn't get more interaction between Claire and Arnaud. We haven't seen those two together since "Diseased", when Claire got quite angry with Arnaud. And since then, we learned she and Kevin Fawkes were a couple once years ago, which put it in a new light. I wanted to see an expansion of that. Claire shooting Arnie in the back as he fled for the exit would have sufficed.

No surprise the Official is opposed to losing the counteragent hold over Darien. Also no surprise he phrases it to Claire in such a way as to abdicate any responsibility for what happens. If Claire does the right thing, save Darien from any further chance of going mad, the Official will have no choice but to watch him more closely than ever. In case Darien decides to run off with government property, you see. And if all that scrutiny and lack of trust causes Darien to bail, then the Official will have to kill Darien to keep the gland in his hands. And it all be Claire's fault.

Which is nonsense, but it's nonsense that works. Because Claire does care about Darien. She doesn't want him to go crazy (at which point he's no good to anyone), but she doesn't want him to die, either. The Fat Man, for all his crabbing at her about getting Mike the Guard killed, is perfectly fine with killing Darien if that's what it takes. And Claire knows that, too. It's a horrible thing to pull, but he's kind of a horrible guy. Much more stick, not much carrot.

But Old Iron Jaw has forgotten that it's dangerous to back Claire into a corner. I'm a little sad this series will be over next week, but I'm looking forward to the finale.

The Invisible Man 2.20 - Possessed

Plot: Darien's tearing his apartment to pieces in the throes of Quicksilver Madness, while Claire tries to keep him calm over the phone as she and Hobbes rush over. She suggests watching something nonviolent on TV, and so Darien turns to the news, where he sees Father Tom Moore at some special event for the kids, and this infuriates Darien sufficiently that he hurls the TV across the room. His friends arrive and the counteragent is administered, but surprise! that little tattoo on his arm has two sections that are still red afterward. Yes, as prophesied by Claire early in Season 1, Darien is beginning to develop an immunity to counteragent. At this rate, it may only be a matter of weeks until it fails entirely. However, she has a new version, but it needs at least a month of testing to hammer out the effects. Darien convinces her to forgo that and give it to him now, and it seems to work. Until that night, when the tattoo goes entirely red in seconds while he sleeps, pushing Fawkes immediately back into Stage 5 Madness.

Darien heads down to the park, where he leers at women, ruins barbeques, and interrupts a tough football game by invisibly running over all the players. Then he travels to a nearby church, where he disrupts a funeral by making the deceased sit up in the casket. And then he finds Father Tom, conducting a Sunday school class, and it turns out he was Darien and Kevin's pastor when they were kids. Darien's being off-putting enough the padre dismisses class early, and they get down to brass tacks. Seems Darien had a childhood friend, Callie, who killed herself because of things her father was doing to her, and Darien wants to know if the padre knew and did nothing, because of the sanctity of confession. Claire and Hobbes barge in about the time Darien is advancing on Tom with a lighter, having been alerted to what's going on by the Official receiving reports about a silver-eyed maniac at the park. Claire quickly tranqs Darien, and they hustle him back to the lab.

Curiously, the Quicksilver that flakes off Darien when he reappears isn't dissolving, which is how they tracked him (that and the people fleeing the funeral). Claire had collected it to run tests, and against her orders, Hobbes touches it. The flakes turn liquid again and are instantly absorbed, and now Hobbes is in Stage 5. He hustles off and attacks the Official, complaining about receiving no credit for all the work he does, for being saddled with a crappy van (he ahd been complaining to Claire about it getting a flat and him having no jack or spare when the Official brought news of Fawkes' rampage), and makes the Fat Man do push-ups while he gets fed the Official's Chinese takeout by Eberts. Darien arrives and gets his ass beat, but Claire is able to avoid Bobby's fist of fury long enough to administer counteragent. Oddly, Bobby awakens remembering exactly what he did, and apologizes profusely to the Official, while Darien didn't remember a thing. Well, Darien remembers one thing. Hobbes and Claire should have collected 3 sets of flakes, not 2, so it's back to the church. The flakes are gone, so they try the burial, with no success. Because the one who found them was Father Tom, and he's headed off to deal with the abusive father of one of his current students. Bobby and Darien get the story out of the kid, and they and Claire rush to his home, narrowly stopping Tom from killing the guy with a fireplace poker. Although then Darien kicks the hell out of the guy until his son tells him to stop.

There are two scenes after everything calms down. Darien apologizes to Father Tom from what happened, driving him mad and all, and tries to pretend it was God that stopped Tom. But Tom knows about the gland, because Kevin confessed to him near the end that he had doubts about what he was doing to his brother. The other development is that it's back to Original Recipe counteragent, and it's less effective than ever. And Claire has no idea what to do about it.

Quote of the Episode: Claire - 'Even if we give you this and it works, we can't be sure what the side effects will be.' Darien - 'Well, it can't be worse than me going coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs, can it?'

The "oh crap" count: 1 (39 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? George Bernard Shaw again, noting we haven't lost faith, we just transferred it from God to the medical profession. Hey speak for yourself, I put all my faith in myself.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 1 (8 overall).

Other: See, Quicksilver Mad Hobbes is good scary, because all that paranoia and self-pity shifts from bravado into grudge-settling. Plus, Hobbes has mad skills, so he's not likely to get his ass kicked like Darien did by Alex that one time. Also, his line about how he pushed the van a half mile, the Official ought to be able to push himself 12 inches in the air 20 times was hilarious. And deserved. The fat man doesn't even open his own takeout boxes. What a lazy, fat bastard.

I'm still curious how, if Darien can build up an immunity to counteragent, he can't also develop an immunity to the narcotic effects of the Quicksilver. Or at least a heightened resistance. But at least they did foreshadow this occurrence way back when. And Darien hasn't really been careful about now overusing the gland, as evidenced by his and Bobby's water park escapades last week.

When the Official told Claire and Hobbes about Darien running amok in the park, Claire said, "Bloody Hell". That amused me since she usually doesn't go big for the stereotypical British slang, and that's one I'm fond of using myself. Though given the reaction "Christ on a cracker" got from Alex and his friend last week, maybe I should use that one more often.

When they introduced the Father Tom character, I winced because I was sure it was going to reveal some repressed memory of Darien's about abuse at the hands of the priest, and I haven't exactly been impressed with the series handling of things like that (especially with regards to Claire in "Perchance to Dream"). And child abuse was brought up, but as something Tom learns about, but isn't ultimately able to stop. Val's father beats Val and his mother, but Tom can't do anything about it, because it isn't the dad coming to confess, where Tom could talk to him, counsel him about finding other ways to deal with whatever causes that. It's Val telling him, so Tom is kind of stuck, just as he was for Darien's friend Callie.

I'm not sure how Tom deals with that, really. Does he live on the hope he can give these kids a safe place, and that will be enough? Is it a trust in God having a plan? How does that jibe with Callie killing herself? He can't turn away from their suffering, doesn't want to turn away, he seems to take his duties seriously, but he can't make it stop for them. His actions under Stage 5 Madness suggest there's frustration, he's aware of the limitations of what he can do as a priest, but how does he deal with it when he isn't in a frame of mind to go beat the offender up?

The Invisible Man 2.19 - Mere Mortals

Plot: We open on Claire in her lab as an emergency strikes. Darien was trying to Quicksilver himself and Hobbes, so they could sneak into the movies, and now Darien can't get his limbs to reappear. Then he goes into Quicksilver Madness, but Claire has the counteragent, and that takes cares of both problems. Also, good news, Claire knows how to turn the gland off. Actually, she's known for 9 months, but the Official has been set against it since Darien is so critical to the Agency's success. Apparently, there's always been a protocol for shutting down the gland, but Claire wasn't sure how the changes Arnaud made to the gland would affect things, so she's going to give Darien an adrenal inhibitor so she can run a series of tests on him for the week it's in effect. So no invisibility, voluntary or otherwise.

Darien takes advantage of this to do all sorts of things that would have been too scary to attempt with an active gland, and as a result, blows off the diagnostics. He even gets picked up by an attractive lady at a newsstand. Surprisingly, he shows some hesitation, because he knows once the gland is active again, he can't see her, and he doesn't want to be a love 'em and leave 'em guy. Fortunately for his conscience, Rachel just got out of a 5-year relationship, so she does want a love 'em and leave 'em guy. Unfortunately for both their sex drives, the Keeper sent Hobbes and Alex out to find Fawkes, and they wreck the whole thing by whisking him away while Rachel's getting changed.

In the meantime, the Fat Man has agreed to help NASA recover some seed crystals. These have proven help in producing new pharmaceuticals, and can only be grown in zero gravity. And some stole them, probably a noted businessman named Shane Waring, and he's producing designer drugs for them. But the Official forgot Darien has no invisibility, and so they have to improvise. What he also forgot is that Darien was a thief before the gland, and so our boy devises a way to break in and recover the crystals. And he does it perfectly, right up to the point he decides to trash the drug lab, which starts a fire, which alerts security, and he gets caught. Hobbes and Alex rescue him fairly easily, and grab the crystals, but then Hobbes gets nabbed. So there'll have to be a trade. By this point, Claire has given Darien the enzyme to break down the inhibitor, but it hasn't kicked in yet, so it appears Alex is on her own. She does recover Hobbes by faking out the goon squad with a fake bomb in a briefcase, but their escape attempt in Waring's limo is halted by Waring's ability to call On-Star and report the theft.

Fortunately Darien followed and brought guns. Unfortunately, he didn't bring extra clips, but as he noted, if they were better shots, they wouldn't need more bullets. By this point they're hiding inside the windmill at a min-golf course Waring built for the city, and it turns out mini golf windmills aren't bulletproof. But it's at that point the gland kicks back in, rather explosively, and the goons are dispatched, Waring is arrested, and the status is quo. All that's left is for Darien to apologize to Rachel and yeah, that doesn't go well for him.

Quote of the Episode: Claire - 'If I reactivate the gland prematurely, it could damage Darien's higher brain functions.' Official - 'He has those?!'

The "oh crap" count: 2 (38 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? Salvador Dali noted the only difference between him and a madman was that he wasn't mad. George Bernard Shaw said as long as he has a want, he has a reason for living. And that Shakespeare line about the relative number of deaths for cowards and heroes.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 1 (7 overall).

Other: I like how excited Darien got at the prospect of working for NASA. I'm sure he was envisioning regular space jaunts.

I'm not sure what orifice all that Quicksilver came from at the end, and it's probably better that way.

I think my favorite scene might be when Hobbes and Alex are being chased and Darien leaps out from the bushes in front of them, and hands them their guns. Mostly because, when the goons come charging around the corner a moment later, Hobbes and Alex swivel and start firing. But Darien skedaddles out of the way. That's really the best word for it. It's this almost comical motion where his upper body leans back and then he kind of slingshots forward out of the way. You can almost hear, "Exit, stage left!" in his head.

Yes, they started in with the cheesy saxophone music when he and Rachel started making out. Oddly enough, they used it again at the end, when he tried to apologize and she slapped him and kneed his groin. I think they must have overpaid the guy playing and just want their money's worth.

I'm sort of convinced Hobbes was willing to interrupt Darien's lovefest as payback for that makeout session between Crazy Claire and Q.M. Darien from five weeks ago. I can understand Alex enjoying embarrassing Fawkes, but Hobbes is supposed to be his partner. Uncool, Bobby.

At one point, Claire approaches the Official and says that the inhibitor isn't stopping the flow of adrenaline, just blocking it from the gland, and if they don't find Darien within 12 hours, he'll die. Which is probably why Hobbes and Alex were so insistent, though surely they could have waited a few hours. But after they find and retrieve him, it's never mentioned again.

When Darien ruined the heist by wrecking the lab, I thought it was because he'd gone Quicksilver Mad. The gland couldn't release any Quicksilver, but it's narcotic properties were still affecting him somehow. Withdrawal possibly. Claire raised that as a risk of removing the gland. Even if she could do it without killing him, she wasn't sure what taking away the Quicksilver would do to him. I was especially sure that was what was happening when he stopped outside the lab to a little kung-fu victory kick, which is something he's done a few times when he went Q.M.

It is consistent with Darien's character, though. His failing as a thief has always been he cares a little too much. It what's got him busted originally, after all. He could have let the old geezer stroke out, but no, he saved him, and for this act, was permanently labeled as a molester of the elderly. His mentor Liz said the same thing. She ditched him because he was always too worried about other people, about not hurting anyone with their crimes. So it fits. Darien enjoys feeling clever and showing off, but he doesn't particularly want to hurt people, or allow others to profit from causing harm. I wonder how much his counteragent leash has to do with that.

Throughout the episode, while all the shooting and chasing is going on, they kept cutting to scenes of Waring and what he's up to, and it usually involves his family. They're watching cartoons together, or his daughter is practicing her electric keyboard. And that continues in the background while he calmly orders somebody killed. And the big shootout takes place in the middle of his public relations move, the mini-golf course meant to make him look like an upstanding member of the community, befriending the local politicians, and giving him an extra layer of security and credibility against any future charges. Kind of slick, even as it makes me a little nauseous.

The Invisible Man 2.18 - The Invisible Woman

Plot: Darien's in a bar playing pool, all set to win, and then a note appears in front of the pocket he's aiming for. A note that was covered in Quicksilver. It asks Darien to come to a park, and when he does he finds Mai-Lin, who was one of the scientists at the Chinese Embassy back in Season 1 (1.13, "Cat and Mouse"). She's able to turn invisible through the use of a vest that introduces Quicksilver into her body intravenously. Problem is, she's just about out of the Quicksilver they "liberated" from Darien, and she needs enough so she can disappear forever. Because half of her face is badly scarred (not Two-Face in The Dark Knight, but yeah, it's noticeable), and she's tired of people looking at her with pity.

They continue the conversation in Darien's car, only to find themselves being followed. They lose the tail by working together to Quicksilver the entire car, which works great until they get t-boned by a different car who obviously can't see an invisible car. However, Mai does pull that other driver out of his car, though maybe it's not safe to lay a probably concussed guy on the sidewalk and bail? But she's a fugitive, let's cut her some slack. Back at the Agency, Darien finds several members of the Chinese Ministry of State Security in the Official's office. Mr. Ming, though his subordinate Mr. Wang, tells them that Mai is actually a dangerous terrorist, out to attack some target in the U.S., though they aren't sure which yet. To that end, Fawkes and Hobbes will be assisted in their search by Agent Chen Po Li, who Hobbes immediately offends by asking which martial art he favors (Hobbes likes hopkido!) Darien immediately ditches the both of them by faking being ill and needing to visit the Keep. Personally, I'd think Quicksilvering half a car would have him near Quicksilver Madness, but no.

He returns to the bar, and Mai eventually appears, and Darien expresses concern that this is a trick. After all, one tank of Quicksilver from him won't sustain her forever, right? But Mai had devised a machine that will collect the flakes of Quicksilver and turn them back into a liquid, enabling her to recycle her supply endlessly. She claims the reason she's being pursued by her government is because this method of creating invisible agents, which would not require putting the gland in anyone's brain, is only in one place: Inside her brain. Also she had a fiance, who she left because she thought after the freak accident at the lab, that she saw only the same pity in his eyes she saw in everyone else's. So they return to Darien's apartment, and she starts trying to write everything down, in exchange for some Quicksilver. Then Hobbes and Chen show up, but there's already a car full of Chinese agents there, too. Hobbes, having already compared Chen to Jackie Chan, calls him Charlie Brown, which Chen hears as "Charlie Chan", which starts a whole argument, broken up when Fawkes tries to disarm Chen, only to get his ass beat, while invisible, by a guy with no thermal goggles. Hobbes does a little better against Mai (who had already told Darien she was a trained martial artist), but our invisible couple make good their escape.

Back at the office, while Eberts and Wang bond over a love of color printout charts, Ming and the Fat Man argue about who is being honest (neither of them), and whether Darien is trustworthy or not. Meanwhile, Mai and Darien are hiding in a hotel in the desert, and when Mai tries to take a shower, she finds it difficult to remove the vest alone, which means Darien has to help her when she's only wearing a towel, and damn it, there's that saxophone again! Invisible making out soon commences, but I guess it was good for Mai's self-esteem, that she knows someone still finds her attractive, contrary to what she had believed. While all that's happening, Chen and Hobbes have gotten into an argument about who is the real bad guy, Fawkes or Mai, which has turned into a fight, and it's only after they headbutt each other that Chen admits he was Mai's fiance, that she was up for a Nobel Prize, but the Chinese government revoked her application, because with her accident, they felt she no longer sent the proper image. Chen does not plan to bring her in, he just wants to find her, and defect and disappear with her.

Hobbes has been leaving messages on Darien's voicemail as the situation changes, and he drops off this last bit of information about the time that Mai reveals to Darien that to finish her Quicksilver recycler, they'll need to break into a nuclear plant and steal uranium. Which sounds like it fits a bit more with the earlier warning about her being a terrorist. Everyone converges at the nuclear plant, with Chen professing his love for Mai while Fawkes and Hobbes look on (Bobby cries), and the four of them escaping while the Fat Man and Ming's agents scramble around futilely. Thus Chen and Mai are able to go off together, having kind of unofficially defected I guess, but Mai gave Darien the vest as something to placate his boss.

Quote of the Episode: Chen - 'She wants to be invisible to the world, but most of all to me.'

The "oh crap" count: 2 (36 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? Jonathan Swift, who said vision was the art of seeing things invisible.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 0 (6 overall). Remarkable, given the car stunt and the invisible sex.

Other: There was one, "Shut up, Eberts", but two, "Shut up, Wang". I like how in the last two episodes, we've seen that every agency has its own Eberts - No Name in the S.W.R.B. had one, and he did have a name, though I didn't catch it - and they all either know each other, or are similar enough to get along readily. No Name's was kind of a jerk, he made the Official "tilt" on his pinball game, but he and Eberts seemed to get along prior to that. They were at least cordial. Anyway, Eberts and Wang becoming fast friends was kind of adorable, especially how they did it around the fringes of their bosses' vision.

Well Darien's competence in fighting only lasted a week. This time, the guy didn't even need thermal goggles to beat Darien up. Cripes. I did like how, after that fight, when Hobbes commented, 'No martial arts, huh?', Chen replied that he watched a lot of Walker, Texas Ranger. Do you Chinese TV stations actually showed that back in the early 2000s? Yeah, I know, Chen was joking, he actually had studied, but he was annoyed at Bobby's assumption, and decided to give him some shit about it. Doesn't mean Chen doesn't enjoy watching Chuck Norris drive around in a big truck and jump kick dudes.

Two things about the vest. One, I thought Hobbes shot the canisters with all the stolen Quicksilver as they were leaving the Embassy. Darien tossed them up in the air, it coated the van, the guys who were supposed to transport it got yelled at? I guess they had some they hadn't brought out yet. Second, if the Quicksilver is still being pumped into her body, shouldn't she be at risk of Quicksilver Madness as well? Q.M. is the result of something Arnaud built into the Quicksilver, so it still ought to be there, but I guess the vest could be filtering it. If the Chinese government knew about the gland, they probably knew how Arnaud tampered with it.

As awkward as the saxophone is, I do like that Darien still has the premature invisibility problem when he gets excited around a lady. It's juvenile, but I still find it funny. And the way he was trying to explain it to Mai, and at first she completely understands, yeah, Quicksilver production would respond to adrenaline, and then it dawns on her why Darien's adrenaline is going. That was embarrassing for both characters sure, but it's still kind of funny. I think part of it is the sax tries make it seem so serious and adult, that makes me find the whole thing kind of absurd.

Darien is never going to live down that "molester of the elderly" tag. Even if he saves the entire world from nuclear devastation, that's going to dog him forever. And it was a bullshit charge, he was jumpstarting the guy's heart. Old people are the worst.

When it seemed Darien doubted Mai at the nuclear plant, I felt bad that he couldn't trust her. As it turns out, I think Darien was just stalling, trying to keep her from doing something that would make her a fugitive from two governments until Chen could show up (I'm guessing he found time to really think over Hobbes' last message). Still, it made sense; Darien is on the verge of helping her steal nuclear material, which is a pretty serious offense, even for a thief. But what it really drove home for me is how wary Darien is of trusting. Some of that I'm sure is his own time as thief, looking for weaknesses, ways to get in. The fact that he conned his own girlfriend about who he was for a year probably colors how readily he expects other people to pull cons. Plus, past experience suggests where the gland is concerned, people aren't trustworthy. Their interest in it, wipes out any considerations of his well-being.

I was uneasy about Mai's story, a lady putting a lot of worth in her looks, but I think I was looking at it wrong. Mai is a scientist, and proud of it. What bothers her is more than other people diminish that because of how they react to her looks. She didn't rescind her application for the Nobel Prize, her government did. She's not trying to find a way to never have to look at her own face, she's just tired of seeing the reaction other people have. Most of all, she doesn't want to see that pity in Chen's eyes, so she tried to never give him the chance. She doesn't know for sure he would look at her with pity instead of love, but it's too important that he doesn't. She can't take the risk, it would hurt too much. Which is more universal, people fearing emotional attachment because it can hurt. Better to be unseen, unattached.

It's a contrast to what Arnaud confessed to Darien in "Flash to Bang", that bit about how awful it is to be invisible. Because it makes you feel like you don't exist. Normally, even if people don't acknowledge you on the street, they still move around you. You demonstrably exist, even if it's only through their avoiding you. But when you're invisible, they walk right into you, because to them you don't exist. You collide, and they look around, confused. What did they hit? There's nothing there. Maybe somebody's book bag swung into them. Shrug, oh well. Keep moving. Admittedly, that reaction makes sense for a person of Arnaud's ego. He demands recognition, even if it comes in the form of cursing his name, vowing to kill him, to pursue him to the ends of the earth. To be ignored is horrible. Mai, on the other hand, has seen the limited ways people are willing to acknowledge her now, and she'd just as soon go unnoticed.

And Darien's somewhere in between. Being a thief was in some ways clearly an attempt to gain notoriety. He couldn't do it in academics, not compared to his 4 doctorate having brother - recall he admitted to Hobbes he attended college for a time - so he found something he was good at, and tried to excel there. But in somewhat the same way Mai feels constrained in her interactions by her accident, Darien feels constrained by the gland. He can never fully trust people, because they could be after the gland, or out to use him, or out for revenge. He can only wander so far, because he'll eventually need counteragent. He wants the gland out, so he can go back to living on his terms, whatever that would mean. A life where everything about him is defined in relation to this thing his genius bro stuck in his head and left him with.

The Invisible Man 2.17 - Exposed

Plot: Well I thought the Keeper was going to find someone qualified with sufficient clearance to help Thomas Walker, aka Augustin Gaither, recover his memories, but I guess she decided she was the most qualified person. And Thomas is starting to remember things, things he doesn't entirely understand, and doesn't like. Claire finds Darien waiting outside, though his interests are mostly selfish, as in, has Thomas remembered anything about how he might extract the gland? Unbeknownst to them, Thomas is sick of the secrecy about his circumstances, and rigs a modem for his computer, which he uses to log into the S.W.R.B.'s database. Which is detected by that agency, and since Tommy used Gaither's codes, No Name knows he's still alive. He demands a meeting with the Official on neutral ground, an arcade, but the Fat Man plays it cool, and denies any knowledge of Gaither's whereabouts.

Back at the offices, the crew meets in the Official's office. Claire is adamant they not turn over Tommy, nor does she want to break his trust. The Official doesn't trust him (and considering Thomas is listening in with a device he planted in the ventilation, perhaps it is justified). Alex wants them to just turn Thomas over. It's largely moot, because that night the S.W.R.B. sends in an assault team. At least they're equipped with nonlethal weaponry. How sweet. They catch Alex trying to copy all Claire's files, but the others have escaped with Thomas. Well, Eberts is still on the loose in the building, and he makes the mistake of calling the Official to report. He doesn't get caught, but his call is traced to the Fat Man's location. It's bad, but Thomas confesses to Darien that he remembers everything, and he turns himself over to the S.W.R.B., leaving our heroes free to return to their offices. Where they find all of Claire's data was stolen, including all the stuff on the gland. The Official is willing to write off Gaither, isn't even concerned about Alex being in their clutches, but agrees Fawkes and Hobbes should go and recover the data.

They make their way in - though they didn't bother to discuss escape until they were already inside - but when they find Gaither, he says he knew they would come, and they're captured. Hobbes gets thrown in the same cell as Alex, but Darien, oh Darien is going to get his wish, the gland removed. Too bad Gaither doesn't expect him to survive the operation. But Fawkes does wake up again, as Gaither didn't remove the gland. Gradually being reintroduced to the memories of his life caused him to reflect on his actions, and he's not happy with the man he was. So he provides Darien with a key card, and tells him where to find Hobbes and Alex, though Darien releases some other guy by accident first, but he does free them eventually and the three escape. No Name barges in to find out what's going on, where's the gland, and finds that Gaither has locked them in the lab, and the whole place blows up.

Back at the office, Claire has been going through Tommy's computers, and she found his makeshift modem, not to mention hours of recording he made of their conversations, which greatly concerns Hobbes, who asks to go through them first. Claire accedes, and she and Darien discuss the aftermath of all this. Darien admits he's a little mad Gaither won't be removing the gland, because he had that moment where he thought it had been removed.

Quote of the Episode: Augustin Gaither - 'I saw myself before I lost my senses. It was just a flash, it didn't make sense. It was horrible.'

The "oh crap" count: 3 (34 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? Edmund Burke, who said that when bad men combine, good men must associate.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 0 (6 overall).

Other: It was actually a little frustrating watching Darien trying to show concern for Gaither when they were hiding out. Just because it feels so phony from Darien. All through the episode, all he's been worried about is whether they can get the memories relevant to the gland, without unleashing the unscrupulous guy. It's regarding Thomas as a resource to be exploited for Darien's benefit, nothing more. That might not be what they intended, Darien was concerned about Thomas when they first met, and he didn't know the truth about him, but it's how it feels.

I really don't want to know what conversation Hobbes has been having he's worried were recorded by Gaither. Also, I don't understand what that bit was with the guy Darien accidentally released. Fawkes insisted he knew the guy, but I don't remember seeing him up to this point. So probably some in-joke.

The reveal that Gaither actually regretted his past actions, rather than simply settling back into old patterns surprised me a bit. I kind of suspected it when he turned himself over to the S.W.R.B. so willingly, because it seemed obviously a way to save everyone. But, you could argue he simply didn't want to risk getting shot if the Official tried to tough it out. I would have said he was trying to play the "selfless" Thomas to trick the Agency people, but he'd already told Darien he had recovered all his memories (though Claire and Hobbes both seemed to ignore Darien telling them that moments later), so that doesn't work.

I've mentioned in the past with the two Resurrection Man series Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning wrote that the parts where Mitch Shelly tries to recover his lost memories are my least favorite part. And that's because, while Mitch always learns he was an awful guy in the past, there's never any real suspense about if he'll go back to acting that way. Mitch is too disgusted by those actions. The same could be said for Thomas, but he has slightly different circumstances. He's been working with people who have known the truth about him all along, but have lied to him, kept him under lock and key while telling him it was for his own protection. There were enough trust issues there to potentially cause some bitterness, and Gaither reverting back to his old self, with the S.W.R.B.'s resources, was terrifying.

I found Darien's conversation with the Keep at the end intriguing. Not just the fact he was angry that the gland hadn't been removed, but his belief that there's no chance it will ever get removed. That's a little harsh, considering Claire is standing right there, but the fatalism, that he's stuck with the gland, and the idea that everyone that gets around the gland tends to die. Some of that is probably just in the moment, still dealing with Gaither helping him escape and stopping No Name, but it's a bit of a shift. Darien's never been happy with the gland, but it's always been about how it's restricting his life. Now it seems like he's recognizing that there's so much value placed on the gland, that it creates a bullseye. But because everyone wants the gland intact, Darien is relatively safe. The same can't be said of the people around him.

Edit: Crap, there were two other things I forgot to mention. One, when the Official and everyone else returns to the Agency after the raid, Eberts crawls out of a ventilation duct, and he's cosplaying as Bruce Willis in Die Hard. No shoes, down to just his sleeveless white shirt and slacks. That was funny.

The other thing was, Darien actually won a fight. While visible. When he, Hobbes, and Alex were escaping the S.W.R.B., they had to get past a checkpoint, and all 3 of them beat up a guard each. And Darien didn't even go invisible. Just straight beat the guy. It's a Christmas miracle!

The Invisible Man 2.16 - Sense of Community

Plot: Fawkes and Hobbes are in hot pursuit of some guys in a car, but like Buford T. Justice, their pursuit ain't so hot. Despite Hobbes having souped up Golda with surreptitiously diverted funds just two episodes ago, the van is back to being a broken-down piece of crap. As it turns out, the Agency is in dire need of funds (even with the money they're supposed to be getting from Alex' connections?), but Eberts has stumbled upon an Agency of Sequestered Seclusion, which is swimming in cash, though they can't determine what it's for, who it answers to, or anything like that. And the money seems to be getting paid out to a bunch of dead intelligence operatives. Except for Paul Grant, he's not dead. But when Fawkes and Hobbes pay a visit, he's ready to leave, and here come three more guys, including one dude who looks like Bald Bull from Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, and they gut-shoot Paul, Fawkes, and Hobbes.

Fortunately, it's with tranquilizers, and now Fawkes and Hobbes are in the Community, a secret place for operatives who had their cover blown. They fake their deaths and move there to live out their days, safe from all their enemies. Except Fawkes and Hobbes didn't get their cover blown, but they're stuck there all the same, under the watchful eyes of camera-toting helicopters, fenced in with motion detectors and particle beam weapons. Of course, the unseens people in charge don't know about Darien's Quicksilver Madness issue, so there's a bit of a time limit on their escape. Especially since the Official has no idea what's happened to them, and has no money to pay for other agents to find them, and all of Claire's equipment is being repossessed, because it was all rented, so she can't even say when he got his last shot.

Hobbes and Darien aren't having much luck finding a way out, though Hobbes does find his old partner, Jack Carelli, and makes friends with a nice lady spy named Elaine, who apparently was a master of all those seduction and deception techniques Alex is supposed to be so well-versed in. Which means Bobby has a hard time trusting her motives as genuine when she shows up on his doorstep (the people in charge have already moved all of Bobby and Darien's stuff into bungalows) with champagne. He almost gets over his paranoia, but remembers Darien needs to get out of there, and rejects love for friendship.Then he nearly gets blown up because someone tampered with his gas line (though the explosion strangely doesn't damage Darien's place, which shares a wall with Hobbes'). As Paul points out, everyone here has a nice, safe life, which Darien and Bobby's attempts to escape endanger. So everyone could be out to kill them, including him. As it turns out, it's Carelli who's behind it, and not even because they're trying to escape. It's because it was Bobby's fault Carelli got burned. Hobbes blabbed to his shrink, who was a double-agent. Oops.

Anyway, Hobbes beats Korelli, Darien risks going invisible to bring down one of the helicopters, because he noticed they can pass safely through the particle beams, and they use it to reach a maintenance hatch and get out. Back at the Agency we learn the Official brokered a deal where the Agency of Sequestered Seclusion will give them enough hush money to keep the lights on, though he doesn't realize their office is now littered with monitoring devices, and Bald Bull is just waiting for them to let the secret slip and throw them in the hole.

Quote of the Episode: Elaine Lowe - 'You know how government contractors are: They're always cutting corners.'

The "oh crap" count: 1 (31 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? Pretty dull week. Carelli used the "rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated" line, Darien used 'we're not in Kansas'. But there was Sophocles, who said there was nothing more demoralizing than money.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 0 (6 overall). Surprisingly, they made it out in time. I was a little disappointed. I wanted to see Crazy Invisible Fawkes wreaking havoc among the spies.

Other: The way they're playing up the money woes the last couple of weeks, this has to be a deliberate plot point. Chrysalis exerting lobbying pressure to weaken their only potential foe. Or maybe it'll turn out to be the side effect of Darien's father refusing to kill that Congressman. His legislation to reduce spending on security agencies is hitting the little ones - who have the narrowest budget margins to begin with - hardest. That'd be amusing, in a no good deed goes unpunished sense. Save a politician's life, he slashes your funding.

But it's getting a little ridiculous if we're to the point the Agency can not afford any agents other then Bobby and Darien (and Alex, who basically brings her paycheck with her). The Official had to send Eberts to try and track down Hobbes and Fawkes, fer pete's sake. He'd have been better off sending Claire. At least we know she knows how to shoot. Not that it mattered, Darien and Bobby made it out on their own.

Oh cripes, when Elaine paid Bobby a visit, they started up with the saxophone music again. Agh, noooo. I suppose it's too bad for Bobby he's spent so much time around Alex. She so seems to enjoy using the seduction and deception stuff on him strictly to amuse herself, that now he's paranoid when another practitioner of the arts approaches him with what appeared to be genuine interest. As she explained, all the other guys in the Community are either 100, or macho jerks. Though Bobby can be a bit of a macho jerk, but I guess it's more harmless bluster, and he doesn't bring it out unless he feels threatened.

It was nice to see him turn her down because he felt he needed to focus on escaping, for Darien's sake, even if it didn't feel entirely necessary. He'd clearly settled in for the night, was down to his undershirt and all, so he wasn't planning an escape right then. I think Fawkes might have understood. And while Bobby didn't outright say he had a special lady back on the outside, he didn't say he didn't. So he has given up hope on he and Claire. I really find that kind of sweet, even if I wish he would just take the plunge and be honest with her about his feelings. She clearly knows, but she's, I don't know, too locked down herself to make the first move. Either that or she's respecting his "No fishing off the company pier" rule, even though I'm pretty sure that's not ironclad.

Can't get over how much that guy from the Agency of Sequestered Seclusion looks like Bald Bull. Now we need Hobbes running in a pink sweatsuit while the Official bikes along next to him, telling him to get a subscription to Nintendo Power if he wants to know how to win (which is a pretty shitty thing for your trainer to tell you, really).

I'm not sure what I think of the reveal that Bobby's responsible for ruining Carelli's career. It makes a certain amount of sense, that countries would insert agents as therapists to get secrets. And it fits Bobby's tendency to sabotage himself with his various hang-ups. But he was so happy to see Jack still alive, and it seems clear he felt the loss of Jack keenly. Partners are important to Bobby, probably because he feels like if he sticks by them, then he has someone who will stick by him, in spite of his issues. The idea that Bobby ruined someone else's career, and not just his own, it feels like a low blow, a refutation of one of Hobbes' most important principles. But I guess it was needed as an excuse for Carelli to try and kill him, though they could always have chosen one of the other spies to do that, or had Carellia be mistaken about who was to blame.

The Invisible Man 2.15 - Three Phases of Claire

Plot: Claire has been working with Thomas/Augustin to recreate a drug Augustin had been making back in the day. At the moment of success, the Official immediately swoops in and takes it, so he can sell it to the CIA for some money to pay the Agency's skyrocketing electric bills. Claire only learns of this because Darien noticed she was down when he came for a shot, and went snooping.  As it turns out, Beta-C is supposed to make people want to talk when asked a question, and the CIA have a traitor they've been interrogating for a long time (years?), but haven't gotten anything out of him yet. Claire is understandably concerned there's been no human testing, but says if she is allowed to adminster the drug, she'll go along.

The ends up being a mistake, because Stanhope pretends to be muddled from a head injury sustained while trying to escape a few days ago, but quickly takes Claire hostage, with the needle jammed in her neck. Darien has a brief chance where he could have stopped them, but has to turn around and stop an agent from taking a shot. Stanhope injects Claire and drives off with her. And once he realizes the effect of the drug - because he asked her - he is, unfortunately, smart enough to ask her the most important question: 'What is the most classified secret you know?' Which means he knows about Quicksilver, and so does his handler, and bulbous-nosed Russian named Dmitri, who Hobbes says must have faked his own death 5 years ago.

While all that has been going on, Thomas has explained that excessive talking in response to questions is only the first phase of the drug. In the second, Claire will begin talking to an inner voice, and in the third, she'll lose all inhibition, become self-destructive and violent. There is no antidote as of yet, but Thomas might be able to make one with access to Claire's computers. Meanwhile, Alex - still sporting that cast, though at least they explained it was from punching a wall - is called on to use her contacts to locate Stanhope, which leads to her walking into a steam room of fat Russians while an accordion plays in the background music. She gets the info, they find Stanhope, just as Dmitri goes inside, so now our two plotlines are even.

Dmitri immediately betrays Stanhope. Fawkes gets the drop on Dmitri, but somehow it gets screwed up and the guy escapes. But heck, Fawkes and Hobbes have Claire, that's the important thing, right? Well, Claire's into Phase 2, even though she knows the voice isn't real. And the voice reveals that Claire is very aware of how Bobby feels about her, which gets Bobby riled up, which gives Darien a headache, and then Claire has to pee, so they stop, and Dmitri tranq darts Hobbes and Fawkes, captures Claire, and stuffs her and Darien in the van. By the time Alex finds Hobbes, they're 30 minutes behind. Oh, and Darien is starting to go Quicksilver Mad. Which is a bit of a surprise for Dmitri when they reach the docks and he opens the van, not that it slows him down much, but Claire escapes, and forces the old guy to chase her up onto a catwalk. Claire is fully into Phase 3 now, so she's pretty much fine with throwing herself off the thing which Dmitri doesn't want. No worries, here comes crazy Darien, so the only one falling to their death is Dmitri. Of course, that leaves a woman with no regard for her safety up there with a crazy murderer, so naturally they start making out and oh god, why are they playing saxophone music?! Naturally, Hobbes and Alex find our two looney birds under a tarp back on the ground, which is crushing for Hobbes. But Fawkes gets his counteragent, Claire is returned to the lab where they attempt Thomas' antidote, and it works. In the aftermath though, everything is very awkward between Fawkes and Hobbes, and between Fawkes and Claire, and Claire and Hobbes. And that's where the episode leaves it.

Quote of the Episode: Darien - 'You actually care what an invisible voice inside her head is saying?' Hobbes - 'I know about invisible voices, all right? I know all about them.'

The "oh crap" count: 2 (30 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? Voltaire, who said the great consolation in life is to say what one thinks. Mark Twain, who said man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to. And I think it's Shelly Chisum, who noted when morality comes up against profit, it is rarely morality that wins.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 1 (6 overall).

Other: We never did learn why the Agency's energy bills have suddenly risen so dramatically. Perhaps Chrysalis bought their power company and jacked up the rates.

It was nice to see they didn't just forget about Thomas. I'll admit I thought at first he and Claire were working on something to restore his senses to him. Somehow, it's hard for me to picture Claire working on something like Beta-C, considering the latter two phases. It feels like she should look at the potential damage that would do to people and say, "No thank you." But I guess "Germ Theory" demonstrated that Claire is one of those scientists who gets excited about learning something new, without necessarily stopping to consider the implications of learning it.

Also, it was nice to see that Thomas wasn't unaware of the fact he's being kept in a cell, and I think he's starting to sense they're lying to him somehow using Augustin as a spectre to keep him scared. That's his own doing, he won't accept he is Augustin, but I like the sense it's a slow-building pressure. It made me nervous when he was granted use of Claire's computer banks, because of what he might find in there. I don't know if he did find anything - Eberts was supposed to be watching over him - but that's going to linger with me until they pick the thread up again.

I didn't quite understand the sequence with the antidote at the end. They inject Claire, Hobbes seems concerned it isn't working, though how can he tell? Claire isn't talking, nor is she flirting with him. Thomas says it's not neutralizing the drug or something, but then it works after all. So I don't know. It was a little sloppy, like the writers didn't want it to just work smoothly, but didn't have time to really do anything with that.

Hobbes ditched the suit jacket this week for denim. It's not a bad look on him.

I know Dmitri was a bad guy and all, planning to take Fawkes and Claire back to Russia to pry all the secrets out of their heads, but still, shouldn't Darien be a little more bothered he kill a guy? I thought going Quicksilver Mad and killing people was a troubling thing for him, but we don't see any indication of it. Maybe because they wanted to focus more on the awkwardness between he and Claire over their escapades, and Hobbes being so hurt by it, but then, they really didn't take time to do anything with that, other than have everyone stand around avoiding eye contact. That's perhaps not out of line for those three; Claire tends to play things close to the vest, Darien has repeatedly - as recently as last week - worked hard to avoid talking about his feelings, and Hobbes, well Bobby tends to hide everything behind bluster. None of them are good at discussing their feelings, but I wouldn't have minded a few small scenes. Claire and Darien try to apologize to each other, and then each reassure the other it wasn't their fault. We got a little bit of Darien apologizing to Hobbes, because he knows how Bobby feels about Claire, but maybe something where Claire considers talking to Hobbes about his feelings for her, but pulls back, because she isn't sure what to say, because she's not quite sure of her feelings for him (or else she's worried about putting those feelings out there).

I guess they could be saving a big Claire/Hobbes conversation for somewhere closer to the finale. Those two need to get honest with each other at some point, though. Watching Hobbes try to disguise it, especially now that it's clear Claire is completely aware of the torch he's carrying, is painfully maddening.

In general, not my favorite episode. Claire working on an interrogation drug still seems off, and I find I don't like stories where the characters escape confinement, only to almost immediately get captured again. It's tedious wheel-spinning.

The Invisible Man 2.14 - Father Figure

Plot: We open on a Thanksgiving dinner at Darien's apartment, with everyone from the Agency and his grandmother there. Then three guys in lab coats with machine pistols run in and kill everyone. Quite the nightmare, so Darien, as he typically does, bounces ideas off Claire. She's curious about the presence of his grandmother, and Darien explains it was his dad's mom, his father having left when Darien was 5, and that she was the only grandparent he saw much of. Also the only one still alive, I guess.

No time to reflect on that, a major alert has gone out to all security agencies about a killer named Forrester Perdue (no idea if I'm spelling that right), who has been killing other assassins for the U.S. for 30 years. Now he's gone rogue, and all the intelligence agencies are being called in to help keep a man no one has ever seen from killing the Prime Minister of Szerbijian. Look, I'm guessing on how you'd spell the made up country. The Official elects to send Fawkes and Hobbes as his reps, because thy work well as a team, while Alex does not. Oddly, no mention is made of the cast she has on her right arm as a reason to not send her after a master assassin (nor will there be any explanation given for what happened).

At the P.M.'s hotel, Hobbes and Fawkes run afoul of all the other agencies' handpicked guys, including someone who knows that FBI dipshit Jones (last seen in 1.17, "Perchance to Dream", I think). This guy makes fun of Hobbes, which immediately sets Bobby on edge, and makes him uninterested in working cooperatively, over Fawkes objections. So much for a well-oiled machine. Hobbes says that since Perdue has killed all his targets with a single shot from long range, they should look for the tallest building within a mile, and stake it out. And this works, Darien spots a guy, goes invisible, follows him into a basement . .  and winds up with a hand around his throat and a gun in his face. But the assassin (who isn't wearing thermals) lets him live, even though Darien saw his face. Darien is badly shook, and bails on Hobbes to visit Grandma. As it turns out, Grandma (or Madeline) had "Perdue" as her maiden name. Yes, Forrester Perdue, the deadbeat father Darien believed was nothing more than a small-time crook, is actually a killer of killers. Which leads Darien to demand to know who sent them out on this mission, which gets things a little heated between him and the Official, especially when the Fat Man makes a few one-liners. The Official has a point, though, Darien's been doing that nonstop at everyone else's expense since he joined the Agency. Damn it, did I just agree with the Official? Worst episode ever.

Anyway, a man named Malachi Royce, who was Perdue's handler, put out the alert, and so Darien breaks into that agencies files, with Hobbes and Alex navigating him through security. Except Darien sits in a chair in a hallway full of pressure plates and triggers an alarm, but doesn't go invisible in response. Not that it matters, the guards let him leave, on orders from Royce, who plans to have his men follow Fawkes to Perdue, then kill them both. Of course he does. In the lab, it's confirmed that Perdue's earliest kills correspond to time Mason Fawkes was supposed to be in jail on various charges. Claire advises Darien to clue in the Official, take himself off the case, or at least talk about what he's feeling.

Darien, being a righteous dude, does none of those things, and goes back to his grandma's to talk. Hobbes watches him, someone watches Hobbes through a scope, guys in suits with guns show up, there's a chase which goes better than you'd expect because Bobby used the Fat Man's charge account to requisition some funds to beef up the van. All it means is they drive into a trap sooner, but someone with a high-powered rifle takes out all the gunmen, and it's Mason/Perdue. They rush back to Grandma's, there are a shitload of guys with suits, guns, and thermal glasses, so Mason creates a diversion by appearing to surrender, then shooting her propane tank, allowing Darien to Quicksilver, sneak in, take out most of the guys, except one who gets ahold of Madeline, but still winds up shot by Mason. This doesn't solve the problem of Royce, so Darien approaches him, saying he'd be willing to take on Mason's work if it'll set his dad free. The job Mason objected to was killing an American senator proposing to cut funding from security agencies, and once Royce admits to plotting to kill him while a Quicksilvered Hobbes records, him, it's mostly over. Darien and Mason get a nice chat, then Mason pulls another fade, since he still has plenty of enemies from all that killing.

Quote of the Episode: Eberts - 'Darien, is there any way for you to act like a grown-up?' Darien - 'What? The gland brings out the kid in me.' I just really wanted to use an Eberts quote for one, plus the novelty value of him being directly critical of someone.

The "oh crap" count: 3 (28 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? Tolstoy, who said all happy families are identical, but all unhappy ones are unhappy in their own way. George Gobel, who observed that he always felt as though everyone else was wearing tuxedos, while he was wearing brown shoes. And some French scholar, who said all heroism is due to lack of reflection.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 0 (5 overall).

Other: I do wonder about these odd jackets Darien wears. This week is what from some chemical company, and said "Jerry". Last week, I think he wore an orange one with a "Rich" name tag on it. Are these holdovers from his larcenous career? Darien didn't strike me as the type to steal by trying to impersonate an electrician or whatever.

One quick scene I didn't mention above is that, when Fawkes and Hobbes go off to chat with Madeline, the Official questions Claire and Alex as to their location. Both plead ignorance, respecting Darien's wish to keep the Fat Man in the dark. He asks (through Eberts) if they're willing to take a polygraph. Claire, mock offended, asks Eberts if she's ever given him cause to doubt her word. Eberts, legitimately chagrined, agrees she hasn't, but counters that she's sitting next to a trained liar. Which leads to Claire's line: 'You're suggesting I've become a prevaricator by osmosis?' If that scene had been more central to the story, I'd have totally used it up above. Then she and Alex get up and leave, saying they need to go apply lip gloss, which I find kind of hilarious for how obviously a load of crap it is, and they know it, and Eberts and the Official know it, but what you gonna do? Alex and Claire's closeness does seem more genuine here than it has in the past, perhaps because they're uniting in defiance of their boss. A common foe is a good uniting force.

I enjoy that even if Eberts wouldn't break regulations to inflate Bobby's paycheck, he did teach him how to get some extra funds under the table to soup up Golda. Also that they're sticking with that as Hobbes nickname for the van. It's those little added touches and developments to the established characters I like.

I still think it's strange they didn't even attempt to explain what happened to Alex' arm. I'm guessing Brandy Ledford suffered some injury and they just had to roll with it, but I'd expect them to address it, however briefly. Kind of an odd thing to just ignore.

OK, Mason/Perdue was ordered to kill an American senator, and refused. So Royce decided to have him killed, to close off any potential leak, and probably just on grounds of not liking insubordination. Fair enough. Why was Perdue around the hotel then? Was that where Royce was staying, and he figured he was a target, so come up with some other excuse for Perdue to be there? That whole scene feels like it was just something cobbled together as a way for Darien to see Perdue, so they could start that whole thing, but that it doesn't fit the rest of the episode. There's no apparent reason for Perdue to be there. They briefly introduce what looks like will be some pain in the ass guy from another agency, who never appears again. Fawkes and Hobbes briefly squabble over how to proceed, right after the Official got done explaining how they operate as a well-oiled machine, and they do mostly work well together after that. It just doesn't quite fit.

So Darien has a father who was a sniper who became a government assassin, and his brother and uncle both worked on secret government projects. I can't decide if that's ridiculous or not. I've probably been reading too many comics, since in those, everyone you're related to always has some cool job. Even Peter Parker's parents were spies who worked with Wolverine once and tried to infiltrate the Red Skull's operations. Kinds of warps one's perspective, you know?

I kind of feel like the reveal of Perdue as his father would have had more impact if he'd ever come up prior to this. Honestly, my first thought when they mentioned Darien's dad was they meant the scientist whose work Kevin expanded on, until I remembered that was their uncle. But he and their aunt helped raise Darien and Kevin, in the absence of their father (and death of their mother). It was kind of hard to buy it being such a big deal, when Darien hasn't expended any thought on the matter of his dad, or his grandma, up to this point. Maybe that's intentional; Darien doesn't think about his past because he doesn't like the person he was, or it reminds him of everyone he's lost. Still, the killer being his dad, and that he believed his dad was a small-time thief like Darien became, that felt a bridge too far, pushing for an emotional impact they hadn't earned.

The Invisible Man 2.13 - Immaterial Girl

Plot: The Agency is under the Bureau of Weights and Measures now, and Fawkes and Hobbes are sent to a bottled water company suspected of fudging how much water they're actually bottling, I guess. But they get distracted talking to an employee, Megan McGrier, who has a burned out computer, and initially wonders if they're FBI, here about her mother. While Hobbes talks, Fawkes goes invisible to snoop, and sees a floating pink human form hanging out near Megan. At the office, Eberts is unable to determine how the computer could have been fried by a power surge, but Darien is too distracted by the fact the floaty thing is following him, which we can tell because it causes lights to flicker. He goes home, and the thing followed him there, and was watching him shower.

At this point, Darien visits the Keeper for help.  When Darien admits the light are in the shape of a woman (which he can tell because when it turns sideways. ..), Claire wants to call in a psychiatrist. She feels the gland makes Darien feel isolated, and his loneliness is making him see things. This is not helpful to Darien, so he storms out of the lab, and there are the lights, floating around in the hallway. So Darien follows them, and they eventually lead back to the bottled water company, and Megan. Megan can't see them, but she says she can feel her mother around her. Her mother went missing a few weeks ago, after coming to visit Megan at work, and seeming upset. Lucille worked for Sandrea, a company with a particle accelerator. Darien presents the case to his coworkers. Hobbes suspects Arnaud, the Keeper still wants to bring in a shrink, and the Official orders him to stay out of it.

So Darien travels to the police station, accompanied by Hobbes. Bobby still thinks it's a trap, and won't leave his partner out in the cold. Unfortunately, the lead detective, a Det. Mishka, is a fat, unhelpful douchebag, who makes fun of them for being from Weights and Measures. The second detective, Willard, is more helpful, and this leads our boys to Sandrea, where two scientists think they're hear to calibrate the accelerator, leading to awkwardness. Then a Dr. Henry shows up and tries to give them the bums rush. Hobbes creates another distraction, allowing Darien to follow Henry invisibly, where he overhears a phone conversation confirming Henry threw Lucille in the accelerator as a way of killing her and leaving no trace.

This leads to Darien reading Particle Physics for Imbeciles, and bouncing some ideas about it off Claire. She admits it is possible someone's thoughts could be turned to pure energy by the accelerator, and perhaps they would persist in a sort of loop. Except when Darien presents that argument to the Official to explain what he sees, Claire distances herself from it. C'mon Keep, have some courage in your convictions! When Darien argues it's possible, Eberts chimes in that anything is possible, theoretically, leading to a triple "Shut up, Eberts!" from Claire, Darien, and Hobbes. Anyway, Lucille gets fed up enough to set off every electric thing in the room, and Darien Quicksilvers the Fat Man's eyes so he can see her, and they're off. At Lucille's house, we find Megan being attacked by two guys, who Darien fends off. The guys had been tearing the place apart looking for something, and it turns out Lucille had devised a formula for a controlled fusion reaction at a subatomic level, which she scribbled on the back of pictures in the family photo album. There's also a sad, lovely moment where Darien uses "special eyedrops" so Megan can see her mother.

That night, the 3 of them travel to Sandrea to scare a confession from Henry. But Hobbes gets locked out in the process of distracting the two guards (or mooks, as he insists). Oh well, two people ought to be enough, right? Wrong. It starts well, Megan pretending her mother's energy has given her power, when it's really Darien invisibly clocking Henry (though Megan thinks her mom is doing it, while Darien waits outside). Then Darien gets himself hit by a lamp, Henry pulls a gun, and throws Megan in the accelerator. Things look bad until Lucille arrives, shorts out the accelerator, causing Henry to panic and charge in to try and kill the girl by hand. Darien finally gets his act together and makes the save, getting Megan out. At which point Lucille restarts the accelerator, and fries Henry. Then she dissipates.

Quote of the episode: Darien - 'You're saying I'm seeing light 'cause I'm horny?' Claire - 'Lonely.'

The "oh crap" count: 3 (25 overall).

Who's getting quoted this week? A Yiddish proverb that states let it be worse, so long as it's different. Francis Bacon, who said there's a superstition in avoiding superstition, and a Samuel Taylor Coldrich who said a mother is a mother still, the holiest thing alive.

Times Fawkes Goes Into Quicksilver Madness: 0 (5 overall).

Other: I like that they've maintained Darien's unwillingness to believe in the supernatural - established in 1.15, "Ghost of a Chance". It may be a little strange, coming from a guy who met invisible Bigfoot, but I guess that had a scientific explanation, so not supernatural.

It amuses me that Claire keeps having these sort of sex talks with Darien. The one at the end of season 1, after his encounter with Allianora, and now this. Though I find it a little odd that when Claire assumes the floating woman Darien is seeing has large breasts, and he points out he never said anything about that, she commends him for his good taste. Those are her words, 'I commend you for your good taste.' Kind of an odd statement, though I guess she could just have been trying to lighten the mood. Darien wasn't taking well to the implication he was seeing imaginary women while Quicksilvered because he's mad the gland makes it difficult to be with a lady (given his tendency to Quicksilver uncontrollably when he gets excited).

Anyway, I know Claire is the scholarly, typically most adult member of the crew - the Official enjoys tormenting Hobbes too much sometimes - so it might naturally fall to her for these sorts of discussions. I just keep finding it funny, because she does come off as sort of the exasperated parent (something she has to do a lot with Fawkes and Bobby, to be fair), but there's a genuine core of concern. Especially this time around, when she fears Darien is having psychological problems. Allianora infecting Darien with some nanobug is one thing, Claire can probably deal with that. If he is hallucinating because the gland makes him feel alone - and we haven't seen Darien maintain any sort of romantic relationship on the show - what can she do about that? She can't get the gland out, and I doubt Darien would appreciate her trying to play matchmaker and find him a lady friend with sufficient clearance that the gland wouldn't be an issue. And it's just awkward for him. Darien doesn't seem to enjoy discussing intimate matters with anyone, and I think it's extra awkward with Claire. Hobbes would present his own set of problems, but Claire is already inside his head so much anyway, I don't think he likes letting her in any more. Plus, I think it makes him feel like a lad specimen again, when Claire starts getting all analytical.

Hobbes played the decoy for Darien's invisible shenanigans 3 times this week. I wonder if that was by design, or just how it worked out. It's not abnormal for Hobbes to do that, but usually not that much.

I was disappointed in Darien making fun of Hobbes for naming the van. OK, "Golda", or whatever Hobbes said, is not a good name, but so what? He likes the van. Not everybody forms attachments to their vehicles, but some of us do, and we just want to live our lives without being judged.

As for the overall story this week, it's kind of a nifty idea, though I'm surprised Lucille's final thought of "protect my daughter" allowed her such a range of motion. I would have expected her to just hover around Megan, trying to protect her, but no. She's able to determine Darien can see her, then follow him around, until she can lead him where she needs to go. She can think enough to recognize when a demonstration is in order to convince the Official (though I'm not sure how she'd know Darien could make them actually see her, maybe she was just trying to get his attention so he'd come save Megan). She can turn off or short out a particle accelerator, then turn it back on. And manipulate a door, which came out of left field. But there were some solid emotional beats, though I wonder how Megan felt watching her mom straight up kill a guy. The guy who killed her and tried to kill Megan, true, but still, I feel like that might have been a shock to her daughter.