Seriable’s Robert L. reviews the season finale of Alphas — 1.11 “Original Sin”
Readers may recall my hopes for this season finale episode in last week’s review, and I have to say that they were adhered to much closer than I expected.
We might not begin exactly where the previous episode ends (unfortunately Bill‘s collapse doesn’t seem to be much of a big deal at all except for some fake underlying tension to “tease” us with — an infarction), but the Christian Slater look-alike is back at it again, on the attack with people’s veins, and our heroes are tracking him.
He’s after Danielle — Dr. Rosen‘s daughter — who is an Alpha. She can touch people and force them to feel emotion. (Not particularly imaginative … I feel like all the Alpha powers have gotten progressively less cool as the season has gone on.) She always “hurts” after she uses her ability.
It’s actually quite pathetic, what has happened to her. She needs lamotrigine (an anti-convulsive) to help her condition, which apparently works better than the ritalin and oxycodone that Dr. Rosen used to give her. So she, and her boyfriend, would steal drugs (or things to sell so they can buy drugs). That’s how she came into possession of the glass necklace that Christian Slater was after. The glass necklace contains a computer chip that has an invitation for a giant Red Flag meeting. Perfect for a sting operation.
In the meantime, Gary is “multi-tasking” and he finds out about Stanton Parish (a person who was involved with MK Ultra). He wrote a manifesto on Alphas, and seems to be the “inspiration” of Red Flag’s movement (I suppose kind of like Hitler and neo-nazis).
Gary goes to meet with Anna, and they hold hands. It’s kind of a bitter-sweet moment, because we know she means trouble for Gary. But she seems very worried about Stanton Parish, and Gary receives a very big clue from her that Mr. Stanton isn’t dead.
(He’s an ageless Alpha — like Kevin Bacon’s character from X-Men: First Class.)
I’d like to get rid of the actress who plays Rosen’s daughter sooner rather than later, because a lot of the “naturalistic” dialogue that the creative team is going for seems to be botched by her. One example is when she says (to her father), “To me, you seem pretty much exactly the same.” Then again, I suppose that could just be bad writing.
This episode contains probably my favorite character flaw I’ve seen since Battlestar Galactica, though, and that’s the fact that Dr. Rosen used to manipulate his daughter into making his wife feel better after they got into a fight. He tried to fix his failing marriage by manipulating both wife and daughter via her Alpha ability.
Pretty messed up, and it takes a lot for him to admit it. It reminded me of Starbuck admitting to Adama that she was responsible for Zak’s death, although, I suppose it was also on a much smaller scale than that.
They still haven’t let the Hicks/Nina romance drop, but thankfully they cut it short, to two lines of dialogue. I can live with that.
Hicks: Look, if anything happens to me …
Nina: Don’t say it, it’s bad luck.
I was rather confused about the bit with all the Red Flag members meeting together. Rosen thought the meeting was a set-up because they were talking about going public with something (the details are incredibly vague), but there’s a cool enough battle sequence that follows.
Anna dies — Gary goes crazy … unfortunately there isn’t enough time to let this moment breathe the way I would have liked it to.
After taking down all those Red Flag leaders, who were set up by Stanton Parish, Dr. Rosen was invited to a closed-door meeting about “what to do about Alphas next.” He boldly takes a camera-pen with him and broadcasts the whole thing to the world (which they do not like one bit), to change the dynamics of Alphas in society. Obviously, it will also change the tension between our heroes and the government next season.
And guess who’s been with Stanton Parish all along? That’s right: Rosen’s daughter.
I’ve pretty much accepted, at this point, that this show is a procedural on a similar level to House M.D. A lot of continuing threads, but always a weekly story. And this episode had a really great way about it. If they can continue making episodes like this, and avoid the “fillers,” I’ll be a very happy person come next season.
My final rating for this episode is: 9/10 Seriable Stars.
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FRINGE OBSERVATIONS: 4.22 Brave New World: Part 2
ONCE UPON A TIME OBSERVATIONS: 1.21 An Apple Red As Blood
FRINGE OBSERVATIONS: 4.21 Brave New World: Part 1
ONCE UPON A TIME OBSERVATIONS: 1.20 The Stranger
FRINGE OBSERVATIONS: 4.20 Worlds Apart
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
SO, I guess this means if you can live for a long time, you are naturally evil. Like Kevin Bacon’s character, and the male on HEROES. I guess the cheerleader is the exception that proves the rule?
I wish we had more gray area with Red Flag to get to this point. I’ll take it but it could have been planned better. What if the bad RF’ers turned out to be outside factions working for SP the whole time? And the others, the main RF’ers were more sympathetic or even non-violent? That would have been a wonderful reveal! It would have been best to do in 2 episodes minimum (having the payoff in the finale). Where we start to question what we have seen and we get the answer/wonderfully emotional revelation in the last show.
What a wasted opportunity.
I suspected Dr. Rosen’s daughter the moment she revealed herself when DR was calling after her in the hotel. I DO like how Dr. Rosen was portrayed in this relationship! It explains some things and we get to see how he’s softened his edges only a little during the season looking backwards from this one.
Remember how he and Glau’s character interacted? How he thinks of Rachel as a daughter and how annoying she still is? This I really appreciated, I like characters on the “hero” team that are just as flawed as real human beings. That made his owning up to what he had done to his daughter that much greater. Those kinds of personalities NEVER do that unless prompted by a lot of experience because they are always so logical and their ideas so great everybody should follow them and if they don’t they don’t understand. They are therefore controlling and manipulative and cannot let people be themselves without their input and direction.
I know because my dad did that. So, I admire Dr. Rosen for realizing his mistakes, and owning up to them. That is a very big deal, and very much about psychology like the show showed so much promise of.
I don’t remember seeing Nina and Hicks kissing like the promo pictures, so score one for editing! Somebody must realize they have messed this up, or we would have seen that kiss *rolls eyes*.
I like how Gary remained friends with Anna and figured out to keep communicating with her on the sly. I like how their relationship was handled, short as it was (not in world-time, but in shown time). She had a lasting impact of CHANGE on Gary … positive change I think. Even highly-functioning autistic people do not take change well. We got to see what she did for him long after that episode.
That is why I miss Anna. It was earned to see Gary go ape-sh** on that guard. I would have liked to see that breathe some more as well. Maybe it will be on the dvd XD
Her death had real impact, I felt it. That raid had real impact, I felt it. I can now see the government as fear- and control-based, and a bunch of incompetant thugs letting bad decisions rule the rest of them. Very much like real life lol (eep, they are going to black bag me now!) I like how Rosen talked to SP and what he did in the closed-door meeting.
This was a show that saves the series enough for me to be curious about the 2nd season. The show runners need to take the time to look at the big picture of what did and did not work, to be observant and completely honest in this.
The best is Gary. He worked and kept on working! I wasn’t sure I was going to like him, he seemed annoying at first and his ability a tool. But he is the crown jewel of the show. I would like to see a retrospective write up on this character, RL! Too bad you can’t score an interview with the actor, I’d love to see that!
Anyways, I am glad it was seriable. They should make it even more seriable next season, This show can do that. It needs to be psychological again. Rachel needs re-tooling or simply off the team. No more romance between nina and hicks!!!!!!plus 10 more !’s Gary is just fine keep up the great work! Bill is OK, but he should be renamed “dropped” Because we suddenly get new plot ideas/character beats for him which are just as quickly dropped.
1) how did he really feel about/deal with being mindwarped to almost assassinate Dr. Rosen? 2) Why did the cult alpha make him lose his power (and nobody else seemed to lose their power), and why did he get it back so quickly? 3) why did we get infarction with no real payoff? He didn’t even collapse into a coma at the end, or die.
dropped dropped dropped dropped .. unearned after unearned after no real payoff. boo!
We never saw creepy “I love you Rachel” human lie-detector guy again. Or any clue of chain-reaction guy. The season ender would have worked out much better if he was in it trying to warn the team of the nefarious plot … or something. I liked his power and his psychological make-up and him as a character. The season was less for not having him threaded into the whole of it more. He gave a lot in one show, but could have offered so much more as they let him grow in the whole season coming in and out of their lives. Now so much as the villain, but the mysterious enigmatic factor, like an anti-hero.
Oh well …
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That’s the problem I have most — them setting up threads that seem like they’ll affect every episode to follow, but then they ignore it for the next five to six episodes.
Anyway, WaySeeker, I just want to say thanks for your thoughts. I think I enjoy reading your comments more than you enjoy reading my reviews. You’re almost always 100% spot-on.
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You like reading my comments, even when they are longer than your review? LOL
Thank you for that, but they wouldn’t be like that if I wasn’t prompted by your reviews. I watch the show, then read your review, then I have these observations.
I dog the show, but it’s only because I like it and hope it will do better, KNOW it can. I am not negative, I do appreciate what it got right and look forward to another season. This was a pretty big thing for the end of the first season!
Thanks again, Robert L
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