Contributor: Henry T.
Story by Evan Katz
Teleplay by Howard Gordon and Davey Holmes
Directed by Milan Cheylov
We are now in the middle section of a three-part trilogy of episodes to end this series. Judging a middle section of such a trilogy (whether it be movies or something else) is a notoriously difficult thing to do. If “Say Hello to My Little Friend” was the kickoff to Michael’s pursuit of what happened in the accident, then this episode serves as the escalation to those events.
Indeed, Michael’s digging into the events of that night and who is ultimately responsible, is the catalyst for the chaos that ensues. The cool thing about it is that both worlds are affected, albeit in very different ways. We don’t have to worry about procedural cases anymore because he isn’t working cases in one world, and may be dismissed as mentally unstable in the other. It’s a truth that has become Michael’s sole priority right now, and I’m thinking it’s not going to end in a way that will be to his liking. He’s probably going to lose a loved one, whether it be Hannah or Rex, and that is something he might not recover from. This episode leaves a lot of questions up in the air, which is expected since the middle portion of a trilogy never has much in the way of plot resolution. The finale is the only episode that can do that, so we have to wait on answers.
I don’t think the show has done this much cross-cutting between the two worlds in some time. It’s a marvel that everything is kept oriented in a way that doesn’t lose the audience in what’s happening. In that way, the teaser opening act asks a lot of relevant questions through the prism of Drs. Evans and Lee and their sessions with Michael. They agree on one thing: That Michael may be manufacturing this conspiracy plot in his head as a way to fit and file over his guilt in killing either Hannah or Rex.
The doctors ask him about a particularly relevant detail and pushes it: Would Detective Britten be so sure to believe such a complicated story based only on a brief glimpse of a man’s face in a mirror, in the darkness of night? It goes right to the unreliability of everyone’s own memory and how it’s often discounted in criminal investigations. But Detective Britten is so sure that Hawkins is the man that it drives him to gather incriminating evidence to prove his involvement in the crash.
Sure enough, the pieces fit as they come out in the open. The Westfield investigation Michael worked right before the crash, which points to a file in Hawkins’ laptop that contains a lease agreement on a storage facility for the heroin that is being illegally smuggled. The show did commit a tactical plot mistake here in giving away the “conspiracy” so early in its run. I think it would have more punch to reveal more and more details about the plot to kill Michael and his family here rather than hinting at it through small portions scattered throughout the season.
There is the sense that things are spinning more and more out of control, and that Michael is suffering a psychotic break. One could argue the break occurred right after the accident. The conspiracy has only two plausible explanations now. It’s either something elaborately created in Michael’s mind, or it really is happening in one of the worlds, if not both of them. The episode loses a lot of its momentum in the scene where Captain Harper, Kessel, and Hawkins are talking in secret and ordering the murder of Bird. The conspiracy plot also diminishes Hannah and Rex’s dual presences as Michael’s anchors in each world.
I did like how there are minute differences in each world that make it stand out. In one world, Hawkins is killed and in the other, Bird is killed. Michael acquires the password to break into Hawkins’ computer to gather evidence, and uses it in the both worlds to get the lease agreement. He looks to be mortally wounded in the world where Hawkins is chasing him, while he’s put in a holding cell in the other. That stomach wound has to be addressed in the finale before anything else. It looks fatal to me, and that could provide a revelation into what happens to the other world when/if Michael dies in one of them. If the show decides to go that path.
The conspiracy seems to be addressed in the Rex world for the first time here, and that brings up questions about why Captain Harper didn’t try to steer Michael away from any clues there that could incriminate her. If the series were given more time, these are the kinds of details that could have been fleshed out a little bit. We’re left with all of this here, and I got the sense there wasn’t enough in the fleeting details. The show does pay off Detective Vega’s loyalty to Michael after working alongside him for so long that, while he’s seen some strange things, he’d never buy that Michael would kill his old partner. Vega started out as a possible spy for Captain Harper, a way to keep a close eye on what was happening with Michael, and now he has morphed into a noble person with a lot of character. He’s not going to rat on his partner, even if it means defying his boss.
I do wonder how all of this is going to dovetail into what is sure to be a very dense series finale. The show has to explain what has been happening to Michael all this time, as well as wrap up the conspiracy plot threads. The corrupt cops don’t have a clue about the split realities Michael is experiencing, which demonstrates how oddly detached that story is from the rest of the show. Michael is quickly getting to the core of the conspiracy, though, and the finale should hopefully resolve all of it in a neatly wrapped package. The buildup was very good. Now the show just has to nail the ending.
Grade: 8/10
