Alter Egos(2012)

While Brendan/Fridge (Kris Lemche) and C-Thru (Joey Kern) are holed up at the motel with Shrink (John Ventimiglia), Brendan quickly grows close with the motel’s manager Claudel (Brooke Nevin), and she encourages him to break up with his disrespectful girlfriend Emily (Christine Evangelista), which he does in an e-mail as Fridge (Emily was “cheating” on him with his superhero identity), and he eventually asks her to dinner. Emily later finds Brendan, since he had told her as Fridge where he was going long before he wrote the e-mail, and Brendan tells her that he and Fridge are the same person, but she replies that she already figured that out. She tells him that she wants to stay with him, believing that his personality as Fridge was how he truly behaved, but he clarifies that his personality as Brendan is the real him. When she refuses to accept this, he makes the breakup official, and she walks away in a huff.

Brendan returns to C-Thru and learns from him that Shrink had actually killed his parents Restore-O (Nathan Harlan) and Windchime (Zenia Sevastyanova) (Brendan had long believed his father shot his mother and then himself), and the Supercorps knew about it but didn’t want to tell him because they were afraid of what he might do. He indirectly encourages Brendan to kill Shrink, but he is hesitant to do so because superheroes are not supposed to kill. Brendan goes into the room and faces Shrink while C-Thru waits outside, and Shrink tells Brendan that he knows that he is deciding whether or not to kill him. Shrink then uses his hidden abilities as a telemorph to have fun with Brendan’s body, but then he reads his thoughts again and discovers that he is Restore-O’s son, and Brendan realizes that what C-Thru told him was true; Shrink did kill his parents and must have used his mind control powers to do so. Shrink reveals to Brendan that he is Restore-O’s brother, and tells him their story: He idolized his brother, but after their parents died, his brother joined the Supercorps and later married Windchime, and he felt like he had abandoned him. When his mind control powers began to emerge in the form of him hearing people’s thoughts, he thought he was going crazy and went through many doctors and mental institutions to try to figure out what was happening to him, and his resentment towards his brother grew because he was never there to help him through it. Then, one day, he was approached by the supervillain Electric Death (Sean Lennon), and he explained to him what was going on in his mind and promised to help him hone his abilities if he came to work for him. Shrink agreed, and he wound up becoming the most powerful supervillain around. Restore-O took notice of his activities and planned to tell the world that they were brothers so his allies would turn against him, but being a fair man, he wanted to make Shrink an offer/warning of sorts, so he and Windchime met him in private. Windchime told Shrink that the Supercorps could take care of him, but he didn’t believe her, plus he thought that being a superhero didn’t seem like much fun. He decided to stop them then and there and flew into a rage, after which his powers went beyond his control and resulted in him making Restore-O draw out his gun and pull off the murder-suicide. Brendan readies his freezing powers for a killing shot, but asks Shrink why he isn’t stopping him, and Shrink replies that he wants him to kill him.

As this happens, a drunken Jimmy (Danny Masterson) – a cop who had cheated on his wife with Claudel and who can also turn invisible for 2.3 seconds at a time but was rejected by the Supercorps when he once applied to them because he hadn’t mastered this power – confronts Claudel, telling her that he plans to reconcile with his wife. He then blames her for almost ruining his marriage, then accuses her of cheating on him with one of the superheroes and physically threatens her. C-Thru hears the struggle and comes to her rescue, knocking Jimmy to the ground, and though Claudel tries to stab Jimmy with a knife, C-Thru holds her back and allows Jimmy to leave. He and Claudel chat, during which she tells him that she has come to really like Brendan. She thanks him for stopping Jimmy as well as herself, and says that it feels better to do the right thing. After some thought, C-Thru leaves her, saying that he has to go fix something. He returns to the room where Brendan and Shrink are, and after Shrink mentions that C-Thru is using a mind control inhibitor to prevent him from reading his thoughts (which Brendan had earlier seen him inject into his arm, though C-Thru claimed it to be medication), he uses his telemorph powers to make Brendan knock out C-Thru.

C-Thru wakes up handcuffed to a chair with Brendan and Shrink standing nearby. C-Thru tells Brendan that he came in to “save” him, but Brendan doesn’t believe him and demands the truth. C-Thru confesses to Brendan that this is a set-up, and that’s why they are in this remote place; the Supercorps needs an active supervillain so that the citizens will need them again and the government will restore their funding. Shrink accuses C-Thru of setting up Brendan to get killed by him and then goads Brendan to kill C-Thru, but Brendan ends up freezing him to death instead. Brendan frees C-Thru and says that Shrink had admitted to killing his father and they must tell the Supercorps, but C-Thru replies that they already know of what just happened, then points out a hidden camera in the room that they have been watching from. He adds that it doesn’t record sound because “we didn’t need it.” Brendan urges C-Thru to call Supercorps leader Captain Amazingness and give him the news, so C-Thru does, hoping that “there’s still time,” but Amazingness commends him for a job well done and tells him to watch the news. He and Brendan turn on the TV and see a special news bulletin broadcasting Brendan killing Shrink, and since the camera didn’t record their conversation, Brendan is made to look like he has turned evil, and the Supercorps announces that they are organizing their efforts to find him. C-Thru tells him that the Supercorps organized this set-up against him for the very reasons he gave, and Brendan admits to C-Thru that this may be happening because he slept with Captain Amazingness’s wife a while back and he must have found out about it, but C-Thru doubts it. C-Thru tells Brendan that he will hide Shrink’s body to slow down their group’s investigation and allow him to flee the country, but Brendan hands him his costume and tells him that he is severing all ties with him. Before he leaves, C-Thru tells him that Claudel really likes him.

Brendan approaches Claudel and reveals to her that he is Fridge, and he was hesitant to tell her this because of her apparent dislike for superheroes. He also says that, before he met her, his life was an emotional nightmare, but she saved him from that because she seemed to like him for who he really was. He wishes they could start back at square one, but that is impossible now because of the Supercorps’ conspiracy against him. She tells him that she still wants to have dinner with him, so they do so, and they end up dancing and kissing. Meanwhile, C-Thru ties up and bags Shrink’s body, but as he is trying to move him out of the room, Jimmy returns and catches him in the act. He takes out his gun and vents his frustration over why he was refused entry into the Supercorps, then accuses C-Thru of trying to take Claudel from him before shooting him a few times and leaving him for dead. Having heard the shots, Brendan and Claudel go out to investigate, and they encounter Jimmy, who is now wearing the Fridge costume. He shoots Claudel, but then he gets killed by Brendan in the same manner as Shrink.

Brendan rushes to Claudel’s side to check on her, but she tells him that she will be fine, then reveals that she has healing powers by healing her own wounds. She explains that she was going to tell him about this, and she had been keeping these powers hidden from everyone because she didn’t want it to be the only thing about her that people cared about (hence her dislike for superheroes). They then find C-Thru and she uses her powers to save him, but after checking on Jimmy, she confirms to the guys that he is beyond all aid. C-Thru tells them that, as far as he’s concerned, that is Fridge lying there. Brendan realizes that Jimmy has given him an exit from both his problems and superhero life, so he and C-Thru come up with a plan.

They tie up and bag Jimmy’s body, then head down to the harbor intending to dump him into the sea so his body will later be found and people will think he was Fridge. Once they get to the harbor, C-Thru tells Brendan to take off so he can complete the task alone, and adds that he will write a report on Fridge’s death to the Supercorps. Before he goes, Brendan forgives him for the earlier betrayal. Brendan later buries Shrink’s body out in a wooded area as the other part of the plan, then he returns to Claudel, who is waiting in her car, and they kiss and drive away.

As the credits roll, a news report states that Jimmy’s body washed up on shore, and the Supercorps is being funded by the government again. In a press conference, the Supercorps states that they have figured out that Fridge was not evil, but had acted under the mind control powers of Shrink, and Shrink had faked his own death to escape custody. Captain Amazingness promises to spare no effort in capturing him, and Shrink is also exposed for having killed Restore-O and Windchime, clearing the former’s name. The Supercorps also confirms that Jimmy was indeed Fridge, and he gets posthumously praised as being a true good guy.