I loved it too. By the way, am I the only person who thought they were going to knock off Purdy when Ringboy handed him that envelope? I really thought Purdy was in deep doo doo. Especially after he was so unslick when Ringboy made the hand in the cookie jar comment.

I didn't fear for Purdy because he is still needed for fake religious stuff that I'm sure is coming. John made a comment that he'd been reading stuff on the internet that people were beginning to believe Faith Heritage could perform miracles. The question is can Purdy now promote Stillson on the airwaves like he had in the past?

Maybe now Purdy will promote Johnny instead? It will be interesting, now that he's seen how evil Janus is, to see whether he is willing to risk everything to defy him. He was willing to go to prison in response to his conscience, so why not?

By the way, I put some thoughts on the premiere into an earlier thread before I found this one. Hey, admin, can you combine threads on the same subject?

For me the episode started off kinda slow then picked up a lot. Janus is freakin evil. I was kinda surprised when Johnny and Bruce didn't get to Miranda in time to save her. But oh well thats what happens, you can't save em all. I rather enjoyed the ending with Purdy.

In the "Rachel 2" ep Johnny told Purdy that he had a choice to make. He could either save his ass or his soul. Maybe Purdy is now aiming at saving his soul versus filling his wallet!
He has always told Johnny that he believed that it was Johnny's destiny to save people, maybe now Purdy will become the Reverend that preaches God's word and not the greedy snake that he has become!!!!

I saw it. It looked to much like 24 because the woman who Stiles was marrying I think was Maria Warner from 24. It was too bad she was killed but I think that this was going to happen to her. PLEASE showing what is coming on next Sunday's episode was too short.

Yes Laura Harris played Marie Warner. Certainly a very different character.

I really hate coming so late to the party as it were. I agree with you Hammer. Janus is pure evil. I used to think that Stillson was one of the nastiest characters to hit TV in a long time. Janus has him beat at this point.

I was blown away, edge of your seat impressed with this seaon premiere. I can't wait to see what is in store for the rest of the year.

I would add that AMH looked particularly FINE as well.

Yes, Miranda is played by the third Ex 24 actress, the other two being the one shot appearence in Deja Voodoo by the actress with the unspellable name and the character of Rebecca who was played by Sarah Wynter. (hope I got her name right) I'm still hoping that Elisha Cuthbert appears on the show! >:-P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I rewatched "Forbidden Fruit" tonight and wrote down a few things:

1. It seems now there is a clearer image of father-son. Janus is the now the father figure to Greg and has succeeded in molding Greg into his image - cold and heartless. To achieve this Miranda had to be sacrificed. Greg told Janus to clear his path or Biblically speaking "making the way straight" as in a direct line to the White House.

It was chilling (and extremely well written) the way Janus called Miranda a "whore". The wedding imagery extended also Janus' relationship with Purdy and probably Greg and John as well. Janus was talking to Purdy and emphasizing that one must understand their roles in the "turbulent days ahead" and weigh the consequences of one's actions. Janus then said, "until death do us part". He also added, "Words we could all live by". This gives me a ill feeling, a foreboding of not just Miranda's death which I'm sure it had to be foreshadowing since Janus had just given Purdy the envelope.

2. Janus mentioned something about Greg that, to me, is a similarity to John and that was an inadequacy of communicating matters of the heart. It may or may not be true. I really think that Greg cared for Miranda in his own way. He had convinced Miranda that he wanted to make a new life for them. Was he telling the truth? For some reason, I think he was, but I doubt if it would stop future philandering. Greg's priorities are his ambitions or his "mission" though and not the woman of his dreams. I too, think Miranda still had some feelings for Greg and believed she may have been mistaken about Greg when Janus produced those earrings.

The reality of the whole ep is that Janus is the master manipulator. In reading John's blog about Janus seeing how things play out in more detail than his visions is uncanny. John mentions that his visions "race". Is this a reflection of John going to fast in his analysis of things?

Alot of Janus dialog could be taken as "double talk". For example, Janus speaking of the phone to whom I assume is Scanlan? Or was it Jeremy Tomlin? Did Janus feed the information to Scanlon who fed it to Jeremy?

3. Patrick Kelly, the Congressman who was appointed to the Committee on Homeland Security. He blocks everything that Stillson "creates". Kelly had no aspirations other than to serve his office. Jeremy Tomlin would go to jail over his source. Janus took each of them down with consummate skill by manipulating everyone in the chain, particularly John, by using John's driven obsession to stop Stillson. This is a lesson that John mentions in his blog about the game of chess. A game I think both Greg and John are learning to do. Even Kelly mentioned Greg learning to play "the game".

4. How does the "devil" operate? He slithers in the shadows with his deceit, lies, and cold heart. The imagery used in this ep illustrates the most effective weapon the devil wields and that is "poisoning the heart", the very method that Miranda was killed in reality and as a metaphor for the pictures Janus showed Greg.

The Woman may be the symbol that preserves the best part of man. If she "falls", the man will fall just like in Bible and the garden of Eden. Miranda "fell" in Greg's eyes by being painted "whore". Janus also seems to not believe in a possibility of "mating for life". I do love too Miranda's comeback of saying Janus understood "animal behavior".

Another imagery brought up briefly by Greg was that he said he liked image of "delicate and unspoiled" as he was looking at supposedly flowers but referring to the lady standing next to him. That is how he must see Miranda until she was caught in the pictures with John. I wonder if Greg will start believing the accusation that he made to his father about "if I loved someone then she must be a whore"?

5. Didn't Patrick Kelly look reminscent of Franklin D. Roosevelt?

6. Bruce is very sharp in this ep. I know he wasn't in it much but I think he said a few key things. The most interesting discussion to me was Bruce telling John about Janus' proposal of joining him as "the third ruler". Bruce said that maybe Janus admires John. I think that is right on the money. I'm even willing to bet that he admires John more than Greg.

What Janus is trying to accomplish I can't say. But if he wants to cause chaos and destruction, then he's already set that in motion. All he has to do is keep stirring the pot between John and Greg and then at the right time let them tear each other apart or compete for power? As Satan, Janus will "give his seat" to whom he chooses as "Anti-Christ". Maybe John's ability to sway the people will a key factor down the road. It is what a "false prophet" does.

I found Kelly's comments to Greg interesting. He sees right through Greg, particularly the arrogance. I liked the points made about people tolerating a "unlikable" who "don't sell them down the river" and who respect their needs. Kelly also knows about Janus and where the real power lies. He called Janus a "cold-blooded phantom" as well as Greg's "master". He should be someone John could go to fight Stillson and Janus.

One point though I'm not clear on was did Kelly allow Scanlon to leak the information about the vulnerabilities of certain targets to the press in order to "scare" the public to demand better security, thus risking the scandal of discovery and even losing the appointment to the committee? Or was it Janus who told Scanlon?

One big point came out though in the ep: "the danger comes from within".

I also wonder at the words Bruce used in describing Tomlin's disclosure of his source when Bruce said that Janus' put "the fear of God" into Tomlin with "the snake". Is that the purpose of Janus? To instill the "fear of God"? Is that how some would really rationalize the devil in reality? That particular phrase has been a subject of debate. "Fear of God" as in invoking judgement or respect in the Creator of the Universe? The word "scare" came up a few times in the episode. What purpose does "scare" serve? More importantly, can such tactics backfire if one doesn't know the full story and the outcome. Does Janus know the full story and John only half?

I loved the moment after John cut off the head of the snake to save the pregnant Karen and the scene immediately switches to a Greg Stillson "running until his lungs exploded" who meets with Janus. Is that a hint that Greg is running from something? I tend to take alot of things as double talk where Janus is concerned and DZ as well.

Greg Stillson may have gone over to the Dark Side, so to speak, by letting Janus take over. But he is still more than just plain evil. Here's how I see it:

Stillson has always struggled with his father's influence. Since he was brought up by a man who was abusive, valued power over everything else, and saw all women as whores to be used and discarded, it's no surprise that Greg took on those attributes. But he clearly disliked the way he was and tried to rise above it, as we have seen both in flashbacks and in some of his behavior in the present.

Having his father around made Stillson's internal struggle even more difficult. In addition to hating his father, he probably blamed him for how he turned out. In any case, that anger caused him to kill his father (whose having killed Rachel finally caused Stillson's rage to boil over). He may have felt, on some level, that his father's death would somehow free him of his own bad behavior. (Of course it never works out that way ) But he must have loved his father at one time, and the guilt and grief overwhelmed him. Having Janus come in and take charge must have been a relief. But Greg didn't realize that he had simply traded his father for a similar father figure. In any case, he gradually stopped struggling to be a better person, and by the end of "Forbidden Fruit," he seems to have given up.

With Miranda, Greg seemed to again be trying to change. She might have been the first woman he ever really loved, at least as he understood love. (Or maybe she was the second, the first being the girl in the flashback who his father sent away.) Greg might not have been capable of changing, but at least he was willing to try. I really believe that he saw Miranda as much more than a useful tool to help him get to the White House. He may also have seen her as a good influence for him, someone he could try to emulate and who might be able to help him erase his father's legacy. But at some point, Greg started to doubt that he could find happiness with Miranda. As she pulled away from him emotionally, he began to lose hope, and to see her as just another woman he was destined to lose, as he had lost his girlfriend years ago. He was awfully quick to believe that Miranda had betrayed him. (Come on, Stillson knows all about manufactured evidence!) Perhaps it was just the excuse he needed to give up on her, and to let his new father figure dispose of her as his father had done with his girlfriend. I think he gave up completely, on caring about Miranda, and on ever becoming a better person. He just doesn't care anymore, and it's so much easier to just give in to Janus and his minions.

On the other hand, I could be interpreting all this in terms of my own life and experiences. But don't we all do that?

The actress who played Eva in "Grains of Sand" is also a 24 alum. I can't think of her name but she played on s2 of 24 as one of the office 'snakes' you might say.

I don't think Senator Kelly authorized his aid to leak the information. The aid himself might have his own agenda. Kelly would not be a senior politician in his state if he hadn't been around a while and thus had an iota of intelligence. He knows how the game is played. He had to know that authorizing a leak could backfire on him. I think he left the wedding in a hurry because of the mess the leak caused but I don't think he caused the leak.

I agree about the double talk aspect of Janus. He clearly has his own agenda. I was very surprised to see his role so clearly spelled out by Kelly. There is an interesting paralell to be drawn between the Senator and Miranda as well.

John goes to see Miranda and tells her that Janus broke into his home and planted the bible. He's upfront with her about what little how knows about Janus right from the start. Kelly knows that Janus is the true manipulator, the only real temper for Greg's arrogance. Miranda winds up dead and Kelly's career is, in all likelyhood, destroyed. The two peripheral characters who knew the most are suddenly a non issue.

Janus is grooming Greg but only to the point where he can be the most useful. Janus has his own agenda and everyone is left to wonder exactly what that is. I wonder if Truax knows?