Review of NO ORDINARY FAMILY – No Ordinary Powell (2011)

Round two with a shapeshifter only causes more confusion and chaos

Faster than you could blink, Victoria-the-shapeshifter (Rebecca Mader) was morphing into just about everyone on the show throughout this last episode.  In fact, Victoria kept us guessing who she would be impersonating next and what she was up to.  Alas, Victoria’s villainous ways were cut short after she underestimated how angry Jim (Michael Chiklis) would be upon hearing that Dr. King (Stephen Collins) has a crush on Jim’s wife.

As has been seen time and time again, everyone is underestimating the Powell family and their tenacity to get what they want and to protect their family.  So while Joshua (Josh Stewart) may be warning the Powells to not underestimate Dr. King, the villains need a heads-up that the Powells will not be willing pawns for anyone.

Dr. King may have an arsenal of super-villains at his disposal, but from what we have seen so far, many of those villains were involuntarily recruited or not made fully aware of what they were signing up for.  Thus, Dr. King’s efforts to institute a stop-loss retention and tranquilize any defectee does not seem very effective.  Sooner or later, some of the defectees are going to align themselves with the Powells in order to take down Dr. King and whatever organization he is working for.  In addition, Joshua is not the only one who began to see the error of his evil ways.  Being a villain does not allow one to live their life freely.  They cannot chose what they do, who they must kill or even have the freedom to fall in love.  The super-freaks are merely tools for Dr. King to use for his nefarious purposes.  But, ultimately, people do not like to be treated like guinea pigs or kept on leashes.

Thus, it would be fun to see a bit more team-building amongst those who do not want to work for Dr. Powell and who resent the freaky side-effects of the serum he has forced upon them.  It could be the makings of a super-hero alliance.

Points of Interest

1.  It was nice that J.J. (Jimmy Bennett) quickly figured out Daphne (Kay Panabacker) had a new and called her on it – though he promptly wanted to exploit her new ability to make Natalie (Katelyn Tarver) start dating him again.  But if Daphne is going to use her abilities for personal gain, it does seem fair that J.J. can benefit from them as well.  Fortunately, Daphne was only willing to help J.J. backtrack the locket and not make someone fall in love with him; even superheroes need to know that there are lines you should not cross with your abilities.

2.  It was also fun to watch Jim and George (Romany Malco) debate how they could trap a super-villain in order to get them to flip on Dr. King.  This may sound like a great idea, but once they considered the logistics of it, it was harder than they thought.  Thus, it was good of them to appreciate the absurdity of the idea.

3.  It was also cool to see Jim improvise with basic kitchen goods to get Victoria’s fingerprints from her apartment.  Jim may not be trained in forensics, but he does use some good common sense.

What Worked

Victoria shooting Jim in the back has to be one of the funniest scenes, with both their reactions being priceless.  Jim was bewildered and told Victoria to stop messing around as he bent the gun she shot him with; but Victoria who was impersonating George at the time just looked shocked.  She had no idea that Jim was bullet-proof.  She definitely should have done a bit more investigating before trying to eliminate someone that she had so little knowledge about.  Thus later, when Jim complained, “I don’t get it, why would she shoot someone who is bullet-proof?” and George speculated, “Maybe she doesn’t know.  That’s why she’s spying on you guys — trying to find your weaknesses.”  It was therefore fascinating how quickly Victoria was able to identify Jim’s kryptonite:  Steph’s (Julie Benz) lip gloss.

It was also about time that Joshua, Katie (Autumn Reeser) and Steph all got on the same page about Joshua’s abilities and that Steph agreed to help come up with a serum to help combat the nasty body-degenerating withdrawal symptoms that Joshua was experiencing.   With the wealth of knowledge that Joshua has about Dr. King and his experiments to create super-freaks and villains, combining their respective knowledge bases to strike back will be fascinating to watch play out. Fortunately, when Steph asked Joshua what he is going to do if she helped him find a cure for his serum-induced side-effects, he firmly replied, “[Victoria] paid for her choices.  That’s why I’m trying to make better ones.”

Plus, Joshua proved to be great resource to turn to in order to quietly dispose of Victoria’s body.  He is a handy guy to have around in a pinch; so there is a lot to be said for teamwork.

Finally, it was cool to see how easily Steph was able to fool Dr. King into believing that she was Victoria.  That double-con shall provide some crazy scenes until Dr. King figures out that Victoria’s actually dead.

What Didn’t Work

It was hard to believe that J.J. and Daphne would have been so cavalier to track down a murderer on their own without alerting one of their parents of their risky endeavor.   It was also hard to believe that Daphne did not use her new persuasion ability to stop Melissa Rainey (Laurie Fortier) before she had a chance to knock Daphne out.

And was it really a good plan for Victoria to try to kill Jim and replace him when she can only replicate how someone looks and not their abilities?  It would have been obvious right away that she was not Jim.  Surely, Dr. King is a bit smarter than that to try to use such a flimsy strategy.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

“No Ordinary Powell” was written by Ali Adler and Sonny Postiglione, and directed by Terry  McDonough. “No Ordinary Family” stars Michael Chiklis, Julie Benz, Kay Panabaker, Jimmy Bennett, Autumn Reeser, Romany Malco, Stephen Collins, Josh Stewart. “No Ordinary Family” airs Tuesdays at 8:00 pm ET on ABC.