Alphas: Episodes 1.6 and 1.7

Let’s do two episodes this week, and then we’re all caught up and we can go to weekly blogging on this show.

1.6: Bill and Gary’s Excellent Adventure
Bill and Gary get involved in a kidnapping case. Cameron notices that Nina has a problem she’s keeping secret.

This series is really shaping up. I recognize that it does some TV tricks, but it feels fresh and interesting. The pacing remains a real plus. There are shows out there that don’t do long character or plot arcs–the Law & Orders of the world, in which each episode stands neatly alone–and then there are shows that extend arcs forever–I’m looking at you, The Killing. Alphas made the bold decision to take two dangling threads and one character motif, and wrap them up in Episode 6, while also moving another one along. SPOILERS AHOY!

We could easily have had a lesser show in which Bill was, always and forever, the guy trying to get back into the FBI. It’s built-in character angst and most shows wouldn’t resolve it. Now, we get to have a new version of Bill, and that opens up possibilities. Meanwhile, Nina had been hinting at a secret guilt since Episode 2. To have it revealed and resolved is, again, different from how most shows handle these things. I like this tempo a lot, but we’ll see if they replace these bits of character business in an interesting way.

The other items ticked off were Gary’s longing to drive, which would simply have become annoying, and the sexual tension between Cameron and Nina. The latter is not resolved, but neither is it staying at that “unspoken tension” thing indefinitely.

The plot of this episode was over-reliant on coincidence. The script engineered 1) getting Gary alone, 2) where he could get arrested so that 3) Bill would overhear an 4) unprofessional cop blabbing about an 5) unusually important case at just that moment. It’s a bit much, and the case wasn’t all that fascinating.

On the other hand, the filming and scripting is still dynamic. I love the overlapping dialogue, the visceral brutality of the violence, which is uncompromising and unglorified, and the sensory experience of watching this show. Maybe it’s because we have Rachel–I feel more odor and texture in this show than in most of what I watch.

Catch and Release
Summer Glau (living in a science fiction ghetto as she seems to) guest stars as Skyler, an alpha with an uncanny gift for invention. She is running from unknown assailants, and she wants only her freedom. Meanwhile, Gary is in conflict with his mother and Bill is in conflict with his wife.

At its best, ER would tie in that week’s medical cases with what was going on in the life of the hospital staff. Of course, that sort of thing can be heavy-handed; on Grey’s Anatomy, it tends to boil down to a patient turning to a doctor and telling them in so many words what’s on their mind. Despite the risk, weaving the guest of the week and the main characters and themes together is valuable. It makes a show feel less like a soap opera–where problems are just on-going–and also less episodic, where each episode’s adventure is unrelated to the one before.

Catch and Release was a weak episode compared to most of what we’ve seen, but it did an excellent job of tying various themes and character issues together with Skyler’s story.

Self-will, self-direction, and personal freedom seem to be ongoing themes of the series. Skyler wants to stay independent, recurring character Nathan Clay, the Department of Defense (DOD) agent who takes people to Binghamton, wants to track her down, and the Alphas team is caught in the middle; employed by the DOD but sympathetic with Skyler. This episode was focused on showing the fundamental conflict of the Alpha team, a conflict that’s been bubbling under since the pilot: Are they really helping alphas, as Dr. Rosen insists, or are they just kidnapping them and sending them away because they’re different? Dangerous, murderous ones like the kid in Anger Management (episode 3) don’t bring up that central conflict, but Skyler is difficult, abrasive, and odd, not violent. When the team finally goes after her, the excuse is unconvincing: A device she invented in order to escape (when people had guns drawn, mind) caused headaches. Bill was the one who argued that was an attack, and Bill is, of course, former FBI, highlighting the government versus people theme.

Meanwhile, Gary’s conflict with his mother kept underlining the self-will motif. Gary’s autism is severe enough to be defined as a disability; he can’t run his life entirely by himself, but he is an adult and allowed to choose his own life (he says). His mother disagrees: If his decision-making is impaired, shouldn’t it be taken from him?

Bill’s wife doesn’t know he’s an alpha, and she wants to have kids. Obviously he’s worried about having an alpha child. That he softens when he meets Skyler’s alpha daughter is sweetly done.

All in all, this was probably the weakest episode we’ve seen, which just proves how good this show is.