The mid-season break was ushered in with a terrific episode filled with mystery and intrigue. Almost every aspect of the show feels different from when the pilot premiered a year and a half ago, and it feels right.
Miles, Rachel and Charlie are out to save Aaron—a character who started as a nobody and is slowly becoming the most interesting and vital character on the show. He’s been captured by the Patriots and held captive, and the trio is more than certainly going on a suicide mission. The only peculiar thing is that it turns out to be a walk in the park. Literally every foe has been knocked unconscious by something. Aaron, along with Cynthia, simply walk out of their prison, leading to a lot of confusion and hinting that Aaron is behind the knock out.
The trio is joined up by Monroe. He’s gone from archvillian, to semi-good guy, to dead, to alive, to “okay, he’s all right, I guess.” He’s back to help. I’ve been vocal that I wasn’t a fan of the characterization that has unfolded with Monroe; however, he’s slowly becoming more tolerable. He’s even already become a hero in a lot of viewers’ eyes.
Once all four of them are back together, they track Aaron and Cynthia to a local high school. Aaron notices Cynthia is cured from all injuries and also meets a boy who lives at the abandoned school. Except it turns out the boy isn’t real; he is a manifestation of the nanotechs. These nanotechs that have been giving Aaron super powers are simply helping him out because he was the one to wake the technology. It seems that the technology has become self-aware.
The reveal is interesting, but to be honest the chaos that follows is a real winner here. The show has gotten so good at action sequences as the series has developed. The Patriots and the group arrive nearly simultaneously at the school, and the ensuing chase/fight is filled with so many great camera angles and quick cuts that the action pops off of the television.
In the battle, Cythia is shot and left for dead. Aaron asks the “boy” to kill all of the Patriots in the school. The nanotech manifestation questions why Aaron didn’t ask him to save Cynthia, leading to the exit of the boy and leaving the show in a state of chaos.
Elsewhere Miles professes his love to Rachel as he seemingly lies dying from an infection. This is coupled with a flashback revealing that Rachel offered to leave her husband six years before the blackout. It’s been an interesting dynamic between these two, and there obviously needs to be a romance on this show—at least that’s what the writer’s seem to think—and these two have been hinted at for a while now.
All in all it was a terrific way to end the first half of the sophomore season. The break will offer some time for all of us to mull over everything that happened so far and make predictions. Let’s be honest: this show has gone all over the place, so any prediction is sure to go wrong.