Now we’re talkin’, Jackson! As far as I’m concerned, this is what an episode of No Ordinary Family should be all about.
For an hour, it contained everything and a bag of chips. From start to finish, there wasn’t a single thing about the show that wasn’t spiffy. Even my usual complaints about George got quashed as he spewed a rather funny line. (“Bruce Willis would never have gotten out of there if he didn’t have that black dude helping him. Let me be your black dude!”)
How did it start? Simply enough. A frantic household breakfast being prepared by Stephanie (Julie Benz) wherein no one is going to cooperate and actually have breakfast. Both kids (Jimmy Bennett, Kay Panabaker) are whizzing out the door to school and Jim (Michael Chiklis) gets a call from George (Romany Malco) about yet another crime being committed which needs his attention. They all agree to meet back for dinner, no excuses.
Then, in the course of the hour, everything falls into place rather spiffily: Jim foils the crime, inadvertently making way for a police station takeover. Katie (Autumn Reeser) brings a withdrawal-wracked Joshua (Josh Stewart) into the lab to see if Stephanie can help him out in any way, (Symptoms from lack of super serum are pretty bad at this point.) Both Daphne and JJ get in trouble while at school for screwing around and wind up in detention with mean old Mr. Litchfield (Jason Antoon).
Now the fun really begins. HR chica Victoria Morrow (Rebecca Mader) makes trouble at Global Tech when she eye-spies Joshua on the premises, setting up what I predicted a few weeks ago. It’s not falling into place exactly as predicted, but I had a feeling Joshua wouldn’t be able to stay off the juice. It matters not his actions were put to “good use;” the fact of the matter is he got jacked up once again. I’m enjoying the interplay of Victoria as the thorn in the side of the “former” Watcher and interested to see where that goes. (Plus! Bonus two Katies mixing things up! A little bit of circus side show fun!)
Jim, meanwhile, becomes embroiled in the thugs’ hostage monkey business playing a little version of Bruce Willis’ John McClane from Die Hard. One by one, George shuttles bad guys his way to be extricated from the situation. (You caught the fact (Joanne Kelly of Warehouse 13 played Internal Affairs’ Rachel Jacobs, didn’t you?)
Daphne and JJ? Well, they while away detention getting into a little backstory fun with other students. Nice to see them putting their powers to (rather) good use instead of some of the goofier situations we’ve seen in previous episodes.
I was on board with Jim’s explanation to Rachel (Kevlar vest) how he survived the point blank shooting that calmed her suspicions and sidestepped any conversation which could have led to his super abilities. And Joshua “coming clean” to Katie, too, was a nice little touch.
In the end (*begin “happily ever after” background music*), The Powells are gathered ’round the dinner table, as promised at the start of the show … each and every one. (Ooooooooooohh! How sweet!)
“Remember Die Hard?” Jim asks as we fade out on a feel good hour of television.
Clacked by Michael Noble 
on Jan 19, 2011 @ 09:39 EST5EDT
