Nikita – Mother freaking awesome

Last night’s Nikita was anything but staid or hackneyed. Even the title and tagline above can’t fully capture the show’s utter increasing awesomeness. The mid-season hiatus went out with a bang for and returned with a bigger one. I wonder about the writing, production, and acting staff. When you work on something that good, how can you avoid applauding at the end of each wrap? Do you just get excited with what happens next? Or, do you just see it as a job? Considering the carefully constructed words, the cinematography’s covert hidden shadows, and the intensity of the actors, I find it hard to believe. Almost everything serves as a hidden jewel box on this show. When it’s good, it’s darkly addictive. And, each episode works as its own fix, forcing me to return for my next high.

Last night, Michael discovered Nikita’s secret lair and blackmailed her into hunting down the informant who killed his family, Kasim, in exchange for Alex’s safety. What catalyzed my TV-based orgasms included the twists upon turns upon twists embedded within last night’s cavernous, labyrinthine mazes. It was beautiful and mature from start to finish. No line, shot, or action appeared wasted or filler. Shane West definitely stepped up and into the role of Michael. While he might have started off rough, his tapping into Michael’s obsessive, dark anger displayed his maturity. I am grateful to director Egill Örn Egilsson’s cinematography background. The moonlit snow flurry shots in St. Petersburg and the horizontal shadows on Michael’s face in Percy’s office exhibited the surreal, cinematic beauty I consistently associate with Nikita.  Although last night’s writer, Jim Barnes, only has “Phoenix” in his writing vitae, he exceeded himself with the characters’ blind rage. Finally, I have to give props to the executive production staff .

The one item that continuously surprises me includes the naïvete of both Michael and Nikita who ceaselessly trust those who continuously betray them. Despite Percy’s iterative duplicity, Michael’s devotion remained unwavering. Although Michael’s call to Nikita all but said “I’m coming to kill you,” Nikita believed he had the black box information. Heck, she even trusted Kasim enough to not intermittently knock him out, to not truss him up like a stuffed pig, to not keep five eyes on him, and to leave a phone near him (locked or no). But, above and beyond Michael and Nikita’s inexplicable innocence, Division should stop relying on operative death as their ultimate fail safe. Honestly, for a super secretive, uber-paranoid covert operation, they have a lot of system holes. They don’t change their unlock codes. They don’t do annual overhaul on their computers systems. They don’t do monthly checks on their facility. Maybe they should hire Breaking In to test their security.

What do people think about Mikita? Michael and Nikita are perfect together, both in anger and in reconciliation with their intensity paralleling marital intimacy. Yet, despite their individual emotional damage, I wonder if they can remain together, due to what they became as division agents. I dislike that Michael put Nikita at risk, similar to how Nikita risked Fletcher. It’s odd how their training takes over, allowing them to treat each other and their acquaintances as disposable resources as opposed to friends or lovers. If they can threaten each other, why are they surprised when Percy pulls it on absolute strangers? In a way Michael was right — their relationship never truly existed except in Nikita’s dreams. Considering both put their loyalty to their dead lovers before their oaths to each other, I wonder how long they can last. However, I’m grateful to learn that Michael told Nikita about his allegiance to his past without leading her on. All the same, I can’t believe his hot piece of ass remained celibate for ten years.

Although Alex took the b-story, her plot remained interesting, but the Nathan and Alex relationship has gone from flirtation to love too quickly. Although I enjoy the Nathan character and his attraction to Alex, I don’t understand his dedication to someone that he just met a few months ago, particularly his eagerness to pick up and run away with her for eternity. Also, the thing Nathan seems to like most about Alex is her spy-ness and her ‘difference’ — what happens when that disappears?

Other thoughts:

• Really? Percy wants the US government to give him an unlimited budget without regulatory oversight and expects Michael, the uber-patriot, to assist, despite Michael’s past antipathy to non-patriotic, for-fee jobs? Why does Percy want all of this independent power?
• I love how they reuse locales. The house of their first mission is also the house that Nikita stormed a couple episodes ago to assassinate Kasim. I also suspect it served as the interior of the house of future Alex.
• The ending proved both cinematic and poetic through Michael’s voice over monologue/Nikita dialogue.
• Although Nikita typically contains a preternatural fighting sense, in this episode she didn’t appear to expect the sucker punch from the Russian or Kasim’s agents.
• Can Nikita and Michael really overcome Percy? He has about 20-30 years in the field, and individually they don’t even have half of that.
• Kudos to the writers for not delaying the Nikita-Michael relationship.
• I always thought Percy’s inability to find Kasim for such a long period of time odd, his willingness to send Michael over alone, and his willingness to send a crew to capture Nikita when he claimed it couldn’t. Now it makes sense.

So, what do you think? Also, what did you think about the ending? Why aren’t people as obsessed with this show as I am?

Clacked by An Nicholson
on Apr 08, 2011 @ 09:00 EST5EDT