Alphas: Episode 1.8 “A Short Time in Paradise”

SyFy.com

Jonas (Garrett Dillahunt) is an alpha with the ability to let people see light and joy, to feel happy and interconnected. However, his ability comes at a price.

There were several things wrong with this episode, things that really annoyed me, and yet there were also smart, interesting, enjoyable, and touching things.

I like these people, and I like the situations that unfold in their lives. I’m interested in their drama and their woes. The characters that interest me the most are Gary, Bill, and Dr. Rosen. The characters that interest me the least are Cameron and Nina, with Rachel somewhere in the middle. This episode focused mostly on Cameron, Nina, and Rachel, with Dr. Rosen coming in at the halfway point to take over the episode. The relative lack of Bill and Gary may be one reason why I’m somewhat cool on the episode. Spoilers below the fold.

Once again, nearly every character was true to him or herself, while still moving forward as a person. That’s a neat trick that few shows pull off. Alphas is not Mad Men, it’s very “television,” which is why I’m impressed by how much it surpasses those limitations. In A Short Time in Paradise, Dr. Rosen confronted his own notion of who and what he is; he violated his own personal standards, and he has to live with that. It’s more than that he took a life, although that’s where he was at as the episode ended; all along he’s been struggling to maintain the belief that he helps alphas, despite Binghamton looming over his head. Killing an alpha means that he can’t put the fate of the less adorable alphas out of his mind and into a neat little file box.

Rosen, by the way, needs therapy, and as a professional, he knows that. That kind of experience can lead to PTSD, and he should not try the “pretend it’ll go away” method.

Meanwhile, Rachel shifted her relationship with her family just a little, and her family responded, just a little. Gary communicated in a somewhat new way, and he made a better connection with another person (Rachel). Nina is trying to distance herself from her own easy criminality, and Cameron went to an A.A. meeting.

A.A. meetings turn out to be overrun with alphas. Who knew? And that’s complaint number one: Meet cute. Alphas is going to have to overcome this problem of meet cute with the alpha of the week, or there need to be weeks without new alphas, or both.

Anyway, there’s happy happy Jonas at the A.A. meeting. One thing that really worked about this episode is that Jonas is a well-drawn, and unusual, character. He believes in himself, his lack of education and worldliness is a problem, and he convinces us of the childlike, stunted nature of his personality. It serves as a sly indictment of radical right anti-science Evangelicals while still being good television, and not a polemic.

My other problem with the episode is how predictable it was. One A.A. meeting and a few gardeners was all it took for me to decide that Jonas had made all those people kill themselves in 1980. And as soon as Dr. Rosen headed out to their culty compound, I knew he’d be using a gun at the end: Why else the conversation with Bill to start things off?

I do enjoy how they continue to care about the science: Bill can’t flip his alpha switch when doped up by Jonas. Cool.

My son, Arthur, realized that the theme of the episode was voiced by Jonas: Going into the darkness. As a villain, he refused to allow his people the free will to do that, and so “the darkness” claimed their lives. Dr. Rosen had to do face his own darkness, and Rachel literally looked into darkness–cancer–in order to help her family. Good stuff.

Next episode’s fangasm: Brent Spiner.