In a way, it feels like the big reveal in this week’s episode was inevitable. You knew somehow that even with Stephen’s father gone, there couldn’t be only one inside the Jameson family. But, the canny writers for this show had us thinking it was the little brother this whole time. Turns out, it was Mom.
Yes, the capital “M” moment that closed out the show was the unveiling of Mrs. Jameson as being a Tomorrow Person, standing there protecting her eldest son’s friend and her father from a hailstorm of bullets coming their way from Ultra agents. “I’m sorry … I should have told you sooner,” she said before the cut to black.
I tend to disagree, ma’am. For as much guff as I gave this show in its earliest, most stumbling episodes, it has proven to be an impressive storytelling machine. Details like this are meted out at just the right moments and leave you at the edge of your seat wishing it were Netflix and the next episode were going to start up without you lifting a finger.
Well, before we got to the Moment, though, there was much to deal with on the way. Stephen starts receiving signals from a breakout who, while poured into a sleek motorcycle riding getup, loves drawing attention to herself. Oh, and he can make objects like police cars disappear with a wave of her hand. She turns out to be the daughter of The Founder, and it is daddy dearest who contracts Stephen to capture the girl in exchange for Astrid’s safety.
Once he finally does snap her up, it all comes out that she doesn’t want to have these powers anymore and is hoping that her activities will be bad enough to secure her with the shot that will make her normal. Through Cara’s telekinetic powers, we also find out that The Founder experimented on her, likely amplifying her abilities while also implanting memories of her teen years. Slightly terrifying stuff, and almost as bad as the prospect of seeing Stephen get a port stuck in the back of his head to allow others direct access to his mind. He gets out of this pickle with Cassandra finally returning to her father, and as far as he knows, all is well.
This is how we end up at a café owned by Astrid’s father and dudes dressed in SWAT gear shooting automatic weapons at the people inside. The Founder, of course, doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain and orders their death. In a slightly sedated state, Cassandra clues in Stephen to the plan and he gets there just in time to see mom holding off a barrage of bullets.
There haven’t been any perfect episodes of this series yet, but this is as close as the show has come. It still does a poor job of trying to inject humor into the story arc, and its attempts at human emotion can feel cold. (I rolled my eyes pretty hard at Mrs. Jameson’s big “iron triangle” metaphor for her family.) The sci-fi and adventure elements, though, are perfectly in place and like the great TV show it is threatening to become, it has me completely clueless as to where it is going, and dying to find out.