Yeah, really. You didn’t notice 21 running around carrying 24’s head at the beginnig of this one or 21 giving Thaddeus 24’s finger and the comic book so he would create a clone slug of 24?
Yeah, how did 21 get the X-1? At the end of the season three finale the Monarch is incapacitated and most of his henchmen are dead and the compound is crawling with OSI soldiers. They certainly weren’t in any position to steal the thing. But when 21 shows up with the X-1 the Monarch has clearly had it for a while.
Mixed feelings about this episode for me.
I like unconventional storytelling structures; I like that everything isn’t spelled out for the viewer and we’re given credit for a little intelligence; I like in-jokes that not everybody gets.
BUT, this one seemed to reach critical mass on all of the above. Just dial it down a notch, OK?
Don’t get me wrong, VB is still one of the most imaginative and creative things around, in any medium. This episode was entertaining, but it had me clenching my brain through the whole thing trying to keep up. And the reveal at the end that the counter in the corner of the screen was related to the value of the comic book just screamed out, “Go back and watch it again! PLEASE!!!” Nope, sorry, I got other things to do.
Ditto. I watched through the first 7 minutes of the second run though, trying to find the “subtle changes that mark it as an alternate telling of events”. I was really getting frustrated by the time I realized there had been some kind of cock-up.
Do we really need spoilers on things that during this episode?
How do we know that was 24’s head 21 was carrying around? Was his mask off? The Monarch’s henchmen all look the same.
IIRC, in the season 3 finale, immediately after the explosion that 24 was caught in, 21 slumped to his knees, screaming…and was pelted by a burning head wearing a henchman’s mask, apparently thrown from the exploding car.
A nice way of instantly shooting down “maybe he survived the explosion” speculation over the summer break, I thought. 
That’s right. I had forgotten about that. I’m still holding out for 24’s survival. 21’s just not the same without 24.
I would say, yes for this episode. There was a glitch in the programming and some parts of the country didn’t get the entire episode. The first half was shown again after the break. Adult Swim is rerunning the episode every night this week, but spoiling it might be nice for those who didn’t catch the full episode yet.
How does 21 expect to get his pal back, even if Rusty does successfully re-grow 24? It’s not like he has 24’s personality programmed into a learning bed.
Good point. One that was even made up thread, which I obviously totally forgot about.
Complaint withdrawn.
Good point, 99th clone of Kayla’s Father. If anyone would know, it would be you.
Rusty told him that. He said the clone won’t be fully grown and he won’t have any of 24’s memories. 21 then replied, “I don’t care. I’ll raise him as my own.”
Ah. I had missed that on first viewing, and I haven’t got 'round to a second one yet. Thank you.
[spoiler]Strikes me as kind of a creepy plan, though. Think the Monarch is gonna let him?
Either way, I’ll tell you, I’m going to miss that Ray Romano voice.[/spoiler]
I hope they don’t ever make that much reference to comics again! I love VB (its my number one Season Pass on my TiVo) but nothing screams ‘loser-geek-nerd’ more than being into ‘graphic novels’!
You might try the Civil Protection and Freeman’s Mind shorts—the voice is almost the same. The Halloween Safety episode is a pretty good sample. (“But that’s important!”)
Isn’t that pretty much the entire show?
This is a joke, right? That’s pretty much the whole basis of the show.
You HAVE to watch it a second time (where’s your commitment?).
I think it was genius. Insane, but inspired genius. Can’t wait for tonight’s showing.