In the last episode, things got a bit serious and it’s about to get a lot more serious. Let’s begin.
Liam and RE/SYST
Due to something that Malcolm Croft said to him, Liam follows Alicia and watches her exit the Treehouse which is an area reserved for members of RE/SYST. His suspicions are confirmed and Liam confronts Alicia about her involvement. She confirms that she’s a member and Liam is disgusted. He demands that he be released from his captivity. Although he encounters some resistance, Alicia removes a thumb-drive from Liam’s pocket and then lets him go.
What strikes me is how childish all these RE/SYST members are. Now I’m at the ripe old age of 24, I’m beginning to notice that I roll my eyes when the members begin to spout their self-righteous bollocks. An example is when Liam calls RE/SYST terrorists for inciting a nuclear war and Alicia pretty much calls the Government terrorists as well. My eyes rolled right around inside my head. Seriously, she must be nearly 30 years old. I know when I was a teenager, I went through a rebellious phase against the Government and the ‘System’ but then I grew up and worked out that nothing is ever going to change. As a working class kind of girl, I have to make the ‘System’ work in my favour and if I want something out of life, then I have to work for it. That’s exactly what I’m doing. That’s my thought for the day. Back to the episode.
Liam defects and heads straight for the Whitehouse where he’s let in without resistance and has an emotional reunion with both Jillian and Darius. Liam and Darius have a bit of a chat about RE/SYST and Liam brings up Alicia. He might as well have just lit a fire in the room for how it much it pisses off Darius who suddenly goes all ‘Shakespearean’ about how she’s a ‘shadow’ and Liam will never glimpse her and all this shit. Fucking hell, Darius, you’re not in the closing act of ‘Macbeth’, calm down. Calming down is not something that either Darius or Liam are willing to do throughout the course of this episode.
A running theme in this episode is a case of not one character seeing the bigger picture. This first instance of this is when Dr Stendahl and Darius are showing Liam the plans for the Rail Gun. Liam is sceptical because Darius plans on testing the Rail Gun on a passing asteroid in 4 weeks but Liam doubts the project will be ready in time. Liam tries to plug his Solar Sail idea but is immediately shot down so he comes up with another idea. Crowd-sourcing to the public for a workforce. Willing people who want to help save the world. Darius reluctantly agrees and comes back with a result. The result being a lot of people who want to help.
Trouble is brewing. Darius’ alarm bells start ringing when he questions Liam about why he didn’t shut TESS down. Then again in his office, the two have a big fight. I agree with both of their points of view. Darius thinks that Alicia has manipulated Liam and he’s right but also Liam thinks that time is not on their side and some kind of collaboration may be beneficial to humanity and he’s also right. But Darius isn’t having any of it. Something more than a discrepancy over the ownership of TESS happened between those two. There’s so much hatred and animosity.
That last part of Liam’s section overlaps with the next section so I’ll start that now so all this makes some kind of sense.
The Hospital Siege – Part One.
In the aftermath of the explosion that left the deciding voter, Justice Cheng critically injured in hospital, the fear is that Bennett will recruit a civilian army that will come and take the Whitehouse by force. The only option is for someone to go to the hospital, the area of which is surrounded by Bennett’s people, and get the decision from Justice Cheng which will finally put this matter to bed. Grace steps forward. Neither Harris nor Darius are happy with Grace putting herself in the firing line but since there’s no reasoning with her, Darius gives her his bullet proof shirt meaning that Grace is going to get shot at some point otherwise there was no point in Darius taking his shirt off. And handing it to Grace. Moving on.
Grace and some other bloke, Roland Cavanaugh (Jonathan Silverman) head into the danger-zone. Cue Kenny Loggins. They make it to the hospital and to Justice Cheng where he’s been placed into a medically induced coma to stop his brain from swelling. Taking him out of the coma is incredibly dangerous and could kill him so his wife, Rhonda (Reiko Aylesworth) wont entertain the prospect of waking him up so he can tell Grace who the proper President is.
Meanwhile, Harris and Hugh are on a mission to link Bennett to the bombing so he will be charged with a crime. The discover that the frightened lady who blew herself up only did it because he family had been taken hostage which we already knew. They hack into a nanny-cam inside the lady’s house which gives them a good look at the perpetrator who is nick-named ‘Redbeard’ because he’s a ginger. They find ‘Redbeard’ and discover that he was a former soldier who acted under the command of none other than General Wallace! I have no idea who that is either but who cares because he’s one of Bennett’s guys and he’s in the Oval Office with the President! Now Harris knows how Bennett was able to remain one step ahead because he had a man on the inside. No one knows how many more of Bennett’s men are inside the Whitehouse but all that matters now is Grace’s safety. But there’s a problem. ‘Redbeard’ has now dressed up as a paramedic and entered the hospital where Justice Cheng is being looked after.
Alonzo Carter has now been made aware that his sister’s body has been found. Since there’s a body, now there’s a crime and he’s out to find the culprit. Grace is number one on his list so he tracks her to the hospital at entirely the wrong time. Or maybe it’s the right time. Depends on how you look at it.
Grace has managed to convince Rhonda that waking up Justice Cheng and getting the decision is the best thing for humanity and so she agrees. The doctor wakes up Justice Cheng and Grace starts filming with her phone. To cut a long story short, Justice Cheng chooses Pauline Mackenzie as the rightful President. Hooray. But don’t pop that champagne just yet because there’s two problems.
One, Justice Cheng’s whereabouts have been released by Bennett and so there’s an army on their way to sort things out.
The second problem links in with Liam’s part of the plot so here we go.
After they realise that Bennett has released Justice Cheng’s location, Darius comes to the conclusion that Bennett is using social media to conduct this battle. The answer is what some might consider to be a bit risqué. In order to stop Bennett from calling the shots, the only answer at that moment in time is to shut down the internet. With no internet, Grace will be unable to send the video of Justice Cheng’s decision but Darius reasons that Grace’s safety is the first priority.
Liam isn’t happy with this plan and insinuates that all that power has gone to Darius’ head and he’s become something of a Dictator who’s happy to shut down the flow of information. Once again, Liam, you’re not seeing the bigger picture. Darius isn’t shutting down the internet so he can become a tyrant, he’s doing it so a tyrant can’t keep on murdering innocent people. Contrary to popular belief, Context actually matters.
This action is the last straw for Liam. He’s going back to RE/SYST and he wants Jillian to come with him. What with Jillian being smart, she’s sticking with Darius because she’s seen what he’s put himself through in order to keep order in the country but also to save the world which includes getting shot. Liam starts throwing a tantrum and calls her ‘Darius’ apologist’. Jillian responds by giving back the engagement ring that Liam gave to her in the last season. With that, Liam returns to RE/SYST.
In the last scene, Darius gets a hold of Grace and he tells her that a helicopter is coming to pick her up. Did I mention that she took down ‘Redbeard’ with a defibrillator? Well she did. And it was pretty cool. I do like a good ‘defibrillator take-down’ every now and again. Anyway, since helicopters in TV shows and films have the average life-span of a common housefly, of course it gets blown up. The last shot is a concerned Darius shouting Grace’s name as the line goes dead.
As cliffhangers go, it’s pretty lame. We know that Grace isn’t dead. That would be stupid. Main characters such as her usually get a glorious and meaningful death sequence. The only thing that the audience should be worried about is the state of the phone. If the line goes dead then that means that the phone is no longer active. That phone is really important. Worth more than the existence of some of the main characters, one might say. I can think of a few.
Have you read my new book? It’s called ‘Patient 187’ and it’s really good and written by me.
The rusty soapbox 