Alphas – The quick and the dead

C. Thomas Howell is a well-known name to people of a certain age (for example: me) for being a part of the “Brat Pack” — and they even use a photo of him from that era! —  but in recent years he’s played quite a few deranged killers, including a particularly chilling turn on Criminal Minds. This time out he’s less serial killer and more desperate man, and the desperation definitely shines through. Eli is super fast, but his speed comes at a cost of aging and a shortened life. Eli wants help from the people responsible for the procedures and experiments that are killing him and then killing in frustration when they can’t help. In case we haven’t gotten the memo about Parish yet, it turns out that he was in charge of the project that seems to have been to create more or stronger Alphas. So, as befits a long-lived mastermind, Parish is playing a long game of increasing Alpha presence, and then gathering them to him.

But Eli’s no stone-cold killer, and he goes to Rosen, who truly does want to help. I think he would help anyway, especially after he learns about the experimentation, but there’s no question the link to Parish gets his attention. But the tactical team intervene and it’s very sad when Dani gives him peace but someone shoots him in the back. Like Rosen, I doubt that one of the tactical team did it by accident — it seems too convenient that Eli was a loose end and knew about Parish’ connection to that facility and happened to die. Though I suppose it’s really no better for the team if that’s not true, because it means Clay’s covering for someone on his own team, who was either incompetent or hateful.

Meanwhile, another connection between Parish and the team forms as Dani and Cameron start a relationship. Watching them attempt to keep it secret is amusing, but clearly futile, especially when Gary’s skills do not include keeping boundaries like other people’s texts about yummy breakfasts private. The news trickles to everyone, until it reaches Rosen himself. But this relationship has the side-effect of chasing Nina away, and she’s upset about that and everything else enough to resign and leave the team. I try not to spoil myself, but I assume she’s not really going anywhere. The more upsetting part of her departure is that she pushes Rosen, breaking her promise to him, and that she’s not really wrong: Alphas die around him.

I appreciate the continuity between the first and second episode, with the team and Rosen still fumbling around with how things are now, all these months later. Bill and Rosen butt heads, Gary can’t stand having all of Clay’s people touching his stuff, and Cameron is trying to keep secrets. But I especially like that Rachel seems to have grown; she’s the one who figures out that Eli’s back at HQ, and takes the others back there on the strength of what she sensed, determined to go back and sure that she’s right.

The end few scenes will no doubt be important going forward: Rosen makes certain that the team understands that they depend on each other (conspicuously leaving Dani off the list), and they cannot depend on the tactical team to have their backs. Dani tells Parish she wants to be with Cameron and he appears to accept her decision though I suspect it’s what he wanted all along, and Nina pushes Rosen and leaves. I definitely got the impression that Rosen is feeling his own failures pretty clearly at the end. He hasn’t lost only Nina, who seems to be prime Parish recruiting material, but he hasn’t fixed the distrust and cracks in the team. Finding out that Dani and Cameron are having a relationship behind his back can’t help that feeling, not to mention  spending eight months in a mental institution. Poor guy; I feel for him.

In case the constant ads weren’t clue enough, if you’d like to see David Strathairn in a different role, he’s back in The Bourne Legacy in two weeks.

Clacked by Liz Tamura
on Jul 31, 2012 @ 15:19 EST5EDT