"Limitless" Recap: "Stop Me Before I Hug Again"

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

Oh Limitless, you never cease to surprise me. One week you're a dark and brooding drama, the next you're a laugh filled riot fest and then you go and do something like you did Tuesday night...and decide it was time to try something incredibly new and in the process combine all of the things we know and love about the show while adding a little dash of parody to all of it.

If it seems like the show tried to accomplish a lot of things storytelling wise this week, well then you would be correct, and if that seems like a risky venture, well you're right again. But this is a different kind of show, one that loves to take risks and the end result of this grand experiment was nothing short of fantastic and for good measure they even managed to throw in a little bit of suspense as well that was so high quality I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat on several occasions. But, I'm getting ahead of myself because so much happened in "Stop Me Before I Hug Again", so let's kick off today's breakdown with the first thing that caught my eye, that parody I mentioned.

Turns out that this week's episode...felt the need to give the wealth of crime shows out there a little jab at their ultra seriousness by changing up that formula a little bit. Take a few nasty murders, and throw in Brian Finch's wild mind and a hallucinatory moment with a childhood hero and what do you get? Ugly words replaced with happy ones, replace killer with hugger for example, and any dark and disturbing nickname for a serial hugger with say...an ice cream flavor and you end up with one creative little parody that actually works like a charm. It made for plenty of laughs and allowed for the show to return to the formula that's worked so well this year where Brian can dig in and solve an extraordinary crime that appears to be impossible to crack.

But the suspense, well that came from the follow up to the last episode, "The Assassination of Eddie Morra" since we discovered the Rebecca simply won't let up on this case despite Brian's best efforts to get her mind off of it and well...I think I enjoyed this plot thread more than I did the crime show send up because of how well done and smooth this turned out to be, especially when it came to the evidence locker segment. This was the stuff that left me on the edge of my seat because for a moment there, it really seemed like Brian was going to be caught by Rebecca in the middle of swapping out Senator Morra's coat, and the fact that Brian was willing to be so helpful toward Morra and Sands was quite the surprise since he's always so suspicious toward the two of them.

But that all appears to be one big trick. Because despite the happy ending this week and the fact that our impossible case was solved...there is a new question that continues to stick in my mind. Is this Brian's attempt to bring down Senator Morra? After all, Brian's imaginary friend Josh-O-Saurus was right...he was on NZT, he had the chance to perfect the chip on the button of Eddie's jacket...but he screwed that part up, knowing full well Rebecca would find the discrepancy. Was this his best opportunity to start the process that eventually might prove the Senator is on NZT? Either way, that quick decision will have some big implications on the rest of the season, can't wait to see what happens next because of it. Until then.

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