Powers Review: Stealing Fire (Season 2 Episode 4)

Bad kitty! Bad, bad kitty!

This week’s Powers shifts the focus away from Retro Girl (slightly), and instead spends time giving viewers a chance to get to know Special Agent Angela Lange, or the Power formerly known as Lynx.

While I could insert about a hundred GIF’s here to properly describe me as I awkwardly watched that almost-sex scene between Lange and Walker, I will refrain.

I’ll instead focus on how amazing Tricia Helfer is in, “Stealing Fire.”

Lange’s presence has been somewhat of a mystery, her hatred of the Powers Division has felt a bit undeserving, and her obviously strained relationship with Walker has gone without explanation.

The slow reveal of Lange’s past with Walker throughout the episode is nearly as compelling, in just 40 minutes, as the romance we watched unfold between Walker and Janis last season. But while neither story has a happy ending, we now have the luxury of watching a woman scorned take revenge, as Lange dissolves the Powers Division.

Why shouldn’t she? Angela stood in Janis’ shadow, always hoping that Walker would choose her over Retro Girl. We discover through these flashbacks that Lange isn’t a hard-ass; she’s simply a girl who is willing to be the consolation prize for a man who doesn’t deserve her to begin with.

Is she really a bad guy? She’s painted as a criminal of some sort, but I want more information. There’s something so sympathetic about Lange that I can’t fully believe that she’s deserving of the setup Walker puts her in during, presumably, his first bust for the Powers Division.

Tricia Helfer has an amazing ability to play both a bitch and a saint simultaneously, something that falls short for many actresses on television. I find myself wanting to give Lange an empowering speech about how she deserves better, while also wanting to shake her vigorously because she’s ruining everything.

Lange: This is gonna end in tears, isn’t it?
Walker: Everything does.

I love Walker, I do. His decision to play Lange was terrible. Considering the history between them, he’d have done better to just talk to her like an old friend, and not create a farce to distract her sexually. Walker is selling Lange short, and for that, I take her side.

But in a completely different way, I’m disappointed that she falls for it…twice. For someone who seems to have the ability to read people and sense their emotions, she does a poor job of recognizing when she’s being played. Is she that blinded by love and admiration?

Walker’s offer to Lange to work together and uncover what the FBI is hiding is reasonable…had he not just humiliated her. Walker went about his mission the wrong way.

The story between Walker and Lange is far from over, as far as I can see. These two have a great deal of unresolved issues, and I have a feeling that there are more flashbacks to come that will help explain their obviously complicated history.

As for the other (maybe?) love story unfolding, Pilgrim is disgusted with her actions, blaming herself for Walker’s injuries.

Kutter is absolutely right; if Pilgrim had been watching Walker’s back, and not digging her nails into his (nice line, by the way), she would have suffered the same fate as Marigold (which appears to be death.) Walker left HER. She can’t feel bad about it.

If I can get silly and ‘shippy for a moment, how sweet was Kutter bringing her food and coffee and trying to genuinely be a good guy? They have another sweet moment later in the episode where he gets flustered after Pilgrim tells him to watch her back, and it’s somehow the most endearing I think Kutter has been this season.

Kutter may be on the fast track to becoming my favorite character on the show.

That is, if he can knock Dr. Death out of that slot.

While David Ury doesn’t have much screen-time, that time unfailingly makes me laugh out loud and smile. There’s something special about his delivery and his chemistry with the rest of the cast. Here, he drives Cross crazy with “cryptic shit,” concerning the building collapse, which ends up leading to the discovery of Heavy, the gentleman who danced away at the close of Episode 3.

Shouldn’t Dr. Death be receiving more credit than he is? Were it not for him, everyone would blaming the wrong people for the wrong crimes. I’m just sayin’…

Calista isn’t doing very well as a waitress. Considering she has powers, she’s not very good at carrying food to tables without looking like she’s about to drop everything.

That’s not her biggest problem. Her dad is a piece of crap, selling her out to The Powers That Be talk show for a quick buck. Maybe Calista should have killed him when she had the chance.

The reveal leads to my favorite moment of the episode, Calista’s big “F**k you,” to her boss and to her crappy job. (Who hasn’t fantasized about quitting their job exactly like that?)

Unfortunately, that moment is a result of having cameras shoved in her face and Craig’s setup for her.

But it does finally get Calista to Craig and, presumably, to the man who’s been pressuring him to sign her.

The king of the nerds himself, Wil Wheaton, has finally arrived on Powers. Commence with your freak-outs…and then cap it up, because I’m pretty sure he’s a bad guy. (Or at least, I think he is. RE: Episode 2, I’ve never won a game of Clue in my life.)

Conrad Moody III is the man behind the toy machine Colossal Fun, the company whose party Walker and Lange had flown away from at the episode’s start.

Moody is fun and child-like, but there’s definitely something dark and intense under that surface. I’m excited to see where this character goes, and what role he will ultimately play in the mystery surrounding Retro Girl’s death. He has to be connected to it, right?

What do you think Powers fans? Did Lange deserve to be screwed by Walker, twice? Will Kutter and Pilgrim get sexy again? Is Moody a bad guy? Sound off in the comments below!

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New episodes of Powers stream Tuesdays on the PlayStation Network.

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