Contributor: Henry T.
Written by Howard Gordon and David Graziano
Directed by Michael Waxman
As a long-time sports fan, I will personally admit to wondering what it would be like for games to have different outcomes. We all wonder what the opposite outcome would be. Also, I’ve been watching television for a long time as well and I’m well-versed in the police procedural. “Awake” dips twice into that well here once again and I am tiring of these cases that are so easy to solve.
A good mystery can enhance the viewing experience immensely, yet when I see material like this, I wonder if the writers are even trying to come up with good ideas to fill out those mysteries. The episode does pack a punch with an ending to what initially appeared to be a minor subplot so there’s hope the show can pick things up. I just wish it had run with that plot through the whole episode instead of running with the police procedural parts. It’s what we get when the show is about a police detective, though, so this is not entirely unexpected.
In one world, a man bets on one team to win, which then doesn’t happen, and he owes a lot of money to a bookie. A fire then destroys the man’s dry cleaning business, of which it’s determined that foul play was involved. On top of that, someone dies in the fire because she had been living in the space in the dry cleaners. I figured this case out rather easily based on the a couple of facts: the fire was conclusively determined as arson to try and get a million dollar insurance claim to pay off the gambling debt. The pool of suspects is pretty thin because only the man and his wife would benefit from the insurance claim. Since the man is played by a prominent guest star (he was on a little show called “Lost”), there was little chance he was behind it. So that leaves his wife.
The details of the case are of little importance so again, it wasn’t too surprising to me that she was behind it. The motive behind the crime was so random, too. She only wanted to clear her husband’s debt, although committing insurance fraud by faking the incident essentially invalidates the claim. They wouldn’t have gotten the money. Also, the debt wouldn’t have been cleared even if the team he bet on had won the game. That was a really wonky case.
At least the other case had somewhat understandable motivations. The victim’s own brother accidentally kills him because he’s been abusing the poor guy his entire life and the fight just got out of hand. The outcome of the game also didn’t matter here. If the guy hadn’t felt the brick on the ground, maybe his brother doesn’t end up dead. He could have done any number of things differently and his brother would still be alive. During all of these events, there is no real focus on Michael’s internal crises. He continues to do his job well, even as one wonders how he can maintain focus on two different cases in two different worlds.
Rex makes his return to the show after two episodes where he has been ostensibly absent. The subplot that involves him is a doozy. Apparently, he and Emma broke up offscreen in the time he’s been absent. Teenage relationships can really be a drag on any show so I was skeptical about where all of this was going. It had the potential to descend into melodrama if the writers weren’t careful. By the end, when Rex revealed the reason for why Emma was avoiding him, it became more than some minor subplot.
In the Rex world, Emma got pregnant and then lost the baby before it could take. This has the potential to spiral Rex into a depression that he and Michael would have to work through together. In the Hannah world, Emma’s pregnancy will advance. Yes, it is a contrived complication that could keep both Michael and Hannah from moving to Portland. However, I choose to see it as an interesting way to keep the memory of his dead son alive. If we are to run with the theory that the Hannah world is reality and the Rex world is all in Michael’s head, then Emma’s pregnancy takes on added poignancy and importance. It’s a big shift in both Michael and Hannah’s life and I would like to see more of it.
This is what the end result should be from exploring the duality of the worlds depicted on the show. The writers could certainly be saving this plot for later in the season, but seeing as how the show’s survival to next season is in doubt at this point, they really should have relegated it to such minor status here. The fact that the cases presented in the episode were so ordinary highlights this subplot above everything. The writers have to focus now because there is precious little time left.
Grade: 7/10
