No Ordinary Family: Listen To Your Art

Oh, No Ordinary Family. When we last saw you, something something something superpowers. Does that about sum it up? Well I’m back for another ten rounds, so let’s get cracking.

Recall that (lucky, lucky) Daphne remembers nothing of the entire first season. This would be more upsetting if there had been any actual character development for us to mourn. The Powell Brain Trust decides that the best course of action is just to immediately display their powers (which I have a feeling also serves as a sneaky way to bring new, mid-season viewers up to date), and there’s some good resulting Daphne shock. They have her read their minds to learn about the last few months.

“You’ve been dragging those plots out over forty minutes?”

Flash to Jim on the street. So…I guess that big Daphne thing is solved now? Some product placement reveals that an expensive painting was just stolen.

SHAMELESS.

And then Jim saves a guy from getting hit by a bus. It’s even more random in the episode than it is in this recap.

Steph is telling our favorite scientist Katie that Daphne “downloaded” some images and now she’s fine. So…are we worried about the school she may have missed? The fact that she can’t remember any of her personal relationships from the last few months? No? Ok, just checking. Steph, one of the leading scientists anywhere, thinks that her total amnesia was totally a normal teen thing.

It is, but it usually involves this.

Katie is preoccupied cause her scary boyfriend freaks her out. And she’s afraid of intimacy. And she’s a virgin. Oh, Katie. Remember that in our society today, this is something to be deeply ashamed of.

Back at casa Powell, Jim is interrupted by the guy he saved and his whole family barging unwelcomed into his home. Which is DEFINITELY how I feel every Tuesday night! Hey-oh!

I don’t know who these people are yet, but I’m 99% sure I’m going to like them better than the Powells.

So we’re pretending they just magically know where Jim lived? Again, just checking. The Powells are invited to dinner and Steph accepts. AND THEN IT’S SUPERHERO TIME BECAUSE A PAINTING IS BEING STOLEN.

This title means we’re not even a quarter of the way done.

The thief throws some weird firecracker things in the air at Jim and then runs. Uh, nice work Jim. Does it seem like he’s not much better than he was like ten episodes ago? Also, the light show qualifies Jim to describe this art thief as being as pro as James Bond.

Also regularly employed cheap fireworks.

Katie is being awesome on her date with that creepy guy and talking about Star Wars and Mos Eisley. This seems to have no relevance to the plot, but it’s certainly welcome.

Steph and that guy’s wife talk about how tough it is for them modern girls to make friends. Then they have lunch and there’s lots of nice friend-making going on. Jim pressures Daphne and JJ into showing their kids around.

So then it’s high school movie time and Daphne and Chloe(other family’s daughter) take on these bitchy girls. Also, I already like Chloe better than Daphne. She convinces Daphne to run against Bitchy Girl for school president.

Troy (the boy) looks even younger than JJ, which I didn’t think was possible, and they awkwardly talk about girls. Troy tells JJ to be more of a bad boy, and then speaking on JJ’s semi-girlfriend, informs us that “she’s a girl. It doesn’t matter how smart she is.”

As a side-note, I think it’s funny that we’ve only just met this other family and each member is already extremely flushed out and extremely interesting, to the point where they make the Powells look like really flimsy characters in comparison. If only they weren’t clearly setting us up for a twist in which the father is Jim’s Bond-esque art thief, I would be excited about their long-term prospects.

The next scene indeed reveals the stolen painting bag in their home. Called it, readers, and not a second too soon.

ANYWAYS. Katie takes creepy guy back to her apartment and they start making out. Then she tells him she’s a virgin, which he has a huge problem with because of course he’s just using her. So then, troubled, he leaves. Which of course makes Katie super depressed. I think that was a really clever way to flesh out the humanity in creepy guy.

George tells Jim about the art heist pattern, which perfectly fits his new friend’s residential history. Jim is troubled.

Troy is totally hitting on Natalie, JJ’s maybe girlfriend. Because Troy is kind of an ass. JJ gets mad, but Natalie says she can take care of herself. “If you keep dating him, you’re going to have to” says Troy. OOOOOOh. I hate that the dialogue is most impressive in the high school bitch-fight scenes. But I also sort of love it.

Cons: I want to punch his smarmy teeth in. Pros: At least I feel something about a character. Not always a given around here.

So then JJ does me a solid and decks him. It’s officially the most I’ve ever liked JJ.

I thought Steph and that other mom we’re going to go out and get a drink in adult terms, like sit at a bar and talk about interior decorating. But instead they’re getting a drink in my terms, which looks a lot like sitting around a kitchen table and trying to convince someone to take their clothes off. They decide to tell secrets because they are 12, and Steph is like two seconds away from giving away her superpower secret when Jim comes in. REALLY? We’re supposed to be ROOTING for these people??? Aaaargh incompetence.

Jim is staking out the museum and he sees the thief again. Just when he notices the watch is the same one as his new BFF Dave, he trips the alarm. Dave gets away and only by breaking bars of the security gate does Jim also not get caught.

Steph thinks Jim is crazy but Jim keeps pushing it, and he decides to go talk to Dave and drop HUGE hints. But Dave gets mad. ADULT FRIENDSHIP DRAMA.

Katie is complaining about creepy guy and Steph is complaining about losing that journal that he stole.

Creepy guy goes to Dr. King to ask for a way out. BECAUSE HE’S IN LOVE WITH KATIE! Dr. King keeps being evil and tells him she will never accept who he is. You gotta have him wacked King, no matter how much I love his impending conversion.

Intrusive much? I’ve known people for ten years that I still don’t want visiting without calling first.

Jim’s attempts to apologize to Dave are foiled by Jim’s secondary plan to riffle through Dave’s stuff. Dave’s wife confronts Jim and reveals that SHE’S THE THIEF! OMG! I did not see that one coming.

Jim tells Steph that Dave’s wife (Michelle) is the thief. Steph says that she will take care of it and confronts Michelle, telling her to come clean. Michelle confesses that she caught sucked in to the robberies and never meant for it to go this far, and begs Steph for the chance to tell her family and turn herself in. She’s TOTALLY gonna betray Steph.

Natalie is really excited that JJ got physical and smacked Troy. Ladies, this is your gender being represented. Troy wanders over and says that he engineered the whole thing to help JJ out. This is a really unflattering portrait of both genders, really.

Bitchy girl gives her presidential speech and everyone loves her, so then Daphne is up. She uses her mind-reading powers to lobby for all the things the students stereotypically want (cell phones, better lockers). Good job, Daph. A textbook TV school election campaign.

Yep, Michelle is waiting in an alley for the art buyer and Steph confronts her and orders her to stop. The art buyer freaks out when he sees someone else there and shoots her, but Michelle leaps in front of the bullet! I really, really like this tragic figure. If the Powells would be as easy to root for as villains as her, then I am all for a reimagining of this show.

Michelle is still alive and she and Steph have a hospital bed touchy-feely moment. Also, Dave is beating himself up for not noticing. And then there’s a lot of talk about keeping secrets and stuff.

“I’m worried our whiny desires for friends will once again fail to be as gripping as the plots of our subcharacters.”

And then more Katie! She’s watching TV and waiting for a pizza! I LOVE HER! But then creepy guy shows up and says that he needed to make a choice, AND HE CHOOSES HER! And then they kiss and just generally make me feel good about everything.

Oh, but then a post-coital Katie finds Steph’s journal among his stuff. Dear show: please spend WAY more time on the complexities of these two.

So, I actually liked this episode. I think the Katie-relationship stuff is really cool and the other family was interesting. Thoughts? Anyone pick this up that wasn’t watching before?