FEAR ITSELF
Season 1 Episode 3
“Family Man”
Written by Daniel Knauf
Directed by Ronny Yu

Now this is more like it. I guess it is true, that the third time’s the charm.


“Family Man” follows the travails of Dennis Mahoney (Eureka’s Colin Ferguson), a church-going, successful bank VP, with everything going for him, including a loving, doting family, who, after a near-fatal accident, finds that he’s switched bodies with Richard Brodigan (Capote’s Clifton Collins, Jr.), the infamous serial killer known as “the Family Man.”


What I feel is the strongest aspect of “Family Man” is the fact that this is a well-written, excellently-acted entry that I don’t think I would have seen on Masters of Horror.
“Family Man” is a psychological thriller that, while admittedly being disturbing and having spots of violence, also succeeds in delving into areas of the genre that don’t rely on on-screen gore or bizarre creature effects to elicit audience reactions.
If Fear Itself means to carve out its own identity removed from MoH, this is definitely a step in the right direction.


And while the body switch is another tried-and-tested notion, what makes “Family Man” work like gangbusters is the noteworthy acting by Collins and Ferguson.
Since I had already been impressed by Collins’ amazing work on Bennett Miller’s Capote, I expected much from him, and wasn’t disappointed.
The pleasant surprise here was Ferguson, as I wasn’t quite sure if he’d be up to the task. Eureka, after all (and no offense meant), isn’t a vehicle that particularly asks much of its actors.
In “Family Man,” Ferguson plays Brodigan-in-Mahoney’s body as the unstable, potentially abusive spouse, the dinner scene a decidedly unsettling sequence.
I’d perhaps first need to watch all 26 MoH episodes again before making a definitive pronouncement, but I think it’s safe to say “Family Man” boasts some of the best acting in the history of the show (“the show” being Masters of Horror/Fear Itself).


Written by Daniel Knauf (who’s written for Carnivale and Supernatural) and directed by Ronny Yu (whose Bride of Chucky was a thoroughly enjoyable entry in the Child’s Play franchise), “Family Man” is the Fear Itself installment I’ve been waiting for, the one that says this is a show worth your time, a series capable of showcasing horror effectively on the small screen.
And if the show continues on this winning trajectory, it may just serve the cause of horror more potently than MoH’s spotty record did.

(Images courtesy of nbc.com.)

LOST Season 3 Episode 14 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Expose”

It’s interesting that I’ve got a lot to say about an episode that does nothing whatsoever to forward the island plot threads…
Lots’a pluses, though.

So we find out Nikki and Paulo’s stories and end up with an interesting CSI on the island/morality tale/re-working of an old TV show convention.
A) the “murder mystery” was passable, though the second Artz (hey, dude! Good to see ‘ya!) talks about the Medusa spider, bam! There’s your culprit, Grissom. Though I must admit, I didn’t catch the whole “Paulo lies”/”paralyzed” thing. Sneaky…
B) again, passable, in that we have seen this sort of morality tale before (ultimately, they both end up getting what they want, and they can’t even enjoy it).
Also, I’m not entirely convinced this sort of side story has a proper place in Lost, given that at the end of it, both characters are (apparently) dead.
Lost flashbacks have always helped me understand characters and motivations better; once I’d seen where these people were coming from, it would become clear why they did certain things. But in this particular case, Nikki and Paulo end up dead. So what if I understand them better now? Thing is, I didn’t really know them at all. And perhaps that’s one of the points of this episode, that we never really know people, the way the other 815ers had no idea what this couple was up to.
But because they were introduced in Season 3, and hardly did anything at all in the past 13 episodes, I had no feeling for them one way or another, other than to hope that they contributed something significant to the show’s narrative before they died (as has sometimes happened in the past).
Well, if their ultimate contribution was this little morality tale, I’m not so sure it was all worth it.
C) Remember how your favorite TV shows of yesteryear would have those episodes where characters would reminisce, and we would see recycled clips from episodes past (among other things, a strategy to control a show’s budget, since you essentially shaved off the production cost of one entire episode)?
Well, this episode does it in grand style, not just by bringing back the dead (yay, Maggie Grace! And Evil Blush-On Man* himself, Ian Somerhalder!! And Leslie!!! I mean, Artz…), but by astoundingly inserting Kiele Sanchez into the amazing footage of the crash wreckage from the pilot.
Additionally, now that we know their story, it also becomes apparent why we never really saw a lot of them in the first two seasons, as they apparently had their own agenda, searching the island for a little black bag… (And didn’t they pull the old “someone hid something in the bathroom/oh, that’s why he went to the bathroom in that episode” trick with Charlie already?)

So, all in all, it was an enjoyable episode, though ultimately, it feels like a diversionary tactic, not having moved the island story forward and not really making me understand Nikki and Paulo any better. (What it did was neatly explain to me why I hadn’t seen them before.)
I don’t really see any long-lasting ramifications of this episode, unless 1) either or both of them pull a Beatrix Kiddo and somehow manage to dig out of their graves, or 2) that despite Sawyer’s poetic gesture, the contents of the little black bag become a plot point for the future… (And not in some hokey sort of “Here, Ben and the Others, take this and let us go, please” “Oh, sure, why not? I’ve always wanted these…” way, either.)
We’ll just have to see, won’t we?

* What I named Somerhalder after his recurring role in Smallville, where he played Adam Knight, one of those guys who gets involved with Lana, only to get Clark jealous, only to reveal himself to be a baddie. (Also, see Jensen Ackles, currently on Supernatural.)