Who am I to disagree? Well, I am going to a bit, anyway.
Also, has it really been four-and-a-half months since the last review. This contains spoilers for the episode.
It says something when you can recognise New York's Grand Central Station by sight. I have been there, but not to actually take a non-MTA service out of it. I digress.
A woman is heading through the station to the subway, pushing her infant in a pram while singing that classic song to do CPR to, "Nelly the Elephant". She comes up to the platform to wait for her train... and is suddenly pushed over the edge. By Olivia Dunham.
Who then wakes up, back in Boston. She then discovers that the woman she saw in her dreams killed herself via a TV news broadcast giving a prominence to a 'one under' that you would find to be unusual in London - sadly they are a common occurrence here.
Olivia goes to see Astrid and the Bishops, reluctant to tell the FBI initially about her experience while getting them to investigate anyway... while having a further dream involving her helping a woman murder her husband at a restaurant. How is Olivia somehow killing people from a long distance away in her dreams? She's not Freddie Kruger and she's the wrong hair colour to be a Final Girl. Fearing that going to sleep will mean more people die, she starts taking caffeine pills, but does not turn into Jessie from Saved by the Bell. More scared than excited and pretty tired. Emphasis on the pretty.
The episode follows the investigation that sees the group taking a trip to NYC - where the show was actually filmed, I believe - to find the connection between these deaths and Olivia. It turns out to be another connection to Olivia's childhood, as previously discussed in "Ability", with the discovery that a childhood friend from a dodgy drugs trial that she has no memory of has contagious emotions - making other people around him feel suicidal - along with a psychic connection to her.
Anyway, we get some head fakery moments where Olivia seems to be doing something normal, then strange... then horrific - before it turns out she's in a sort of dream state, but someone else has tied. The most memorable being where Olivia, having just found out about the drugs trial (some excellent face acting from Anna Torv there), goes for a wander. She then makes her way to a strip club, has a snog with a dancer, then goes home with her. She's been placed in a trance to find more information about her friend... and we get to hear some brief sexual moans from Anna Torv as she/he copulates with a stripper. Well, at least she's fully clothed and not been placed in the Swimsuit Dunham Tank for that! Then the stripper kills herself, but she does so in her underwear, while Anna Torv is in a tank top. Sometimes lesbians are for representation, but frequently they've been for the male gaze. Fortunately, things are getting better in that regards.
The climax sees Olivia being asked to shoot her friend to stop him jumping off a roof and taking some other people with him. She shoots him in her legs and he's placed in a drug-induced coma until further notice.
Then we get the final twist. Olivia, or "Olive" as she was nicknamed back then, appears to have engaged in a spot of childhood arson! Possibly killing people!
Dun Dun Dunham! Or perhaps "dun dun dun, dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun..." to quote the closing theme music.
I'll see myself out.
Conclusion
Aside from the frankly unnecessary lesbian action that is clearly there for titillation purposes, this is a very good episode.
8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment