CONTINUUM Takes Us to the Woodshed

Episode 109 “Family Time”

It’s an episode with horses. And more of Kiera’s fascination with the beasts.

Oh. And a gunfight. And ‘splosions.

[SPOILERS ON THE RIGHT. SPOILERS ON THE LEFT]

Carlos and Kiera get sent out on a call to investigate a very large order of fertilizer. Since terrorists use such things in the making of bombs, any sufficient quantities at any one time — that’s enough to trigger an alert and somebody has to check it out. So they’re off to a quiet little farm in the hills. With horses.

And Alec.

Wha-huh? Yep. Alec’s step-father, Roland, apparently made a big order of fertilizer. Except he didn’t. So when they find it in the barn attached to the timers, well… awkward. Especially when Alec’s step-brother Julian shows up with his buddies (really, who would name their kid Hoyt nowadays?) and there’s a little bit of a Mexican standoff in which Carlos gets a bullet in the gut.

So, now we have a ticking time-bomb scenario compounded by a ticking time-bomb scenario. We’ve got the Gang of Teens deciding to take matters into their own hands and act instead of sitting around the living room listening to Roland wax poetic about how unfairly the system treats everyone, how the corporations have too much power. Julian and his friends want to step up their game, make people pay attention to them. And they’ve been listening to Kagame as he speechifies on the Interwebz. The newly minted domestic terrorists — led by a boy named Hoyt, remember — plan for “Theseus Day” and hold everyone in the farm house.

Of course, Carlos has been gut-shot. That’s never a good way to go.

Alec’s mother manages to snag a cell phone and call 9-1-1, so when the police show up, we have yet another ticking time bomb scenario as the police move into position to storm the house, thinking Roland is the one in charge when he’s actually just another hostage. Meanwhile, Alec has managed to use his tech to connect Kiera with SWAT and she almost manages to tell them Roland’s not responsible when they get cut off.

Alec also manages to get Kiera’s suit to her, and she gets to be all stealthy and high-tech and cool, engaging her cloaking device and disappearing right in front of her sidekick.

Naturally, things go from bad to worse when they blow up the propane tank.

Kiera manages to get to Hoyt before he can escape with the real bomb, and with Alec’s help manages to subdue pretty much everyone but Julian, who makes it back into the house to invite Alec along for the ride. Only Alec’s not having any, and things just manage to calm down a bit when the SWAT team shoots Roland and takes him out.

All over Twitter, it was (rightly) pointed out that if a SWAT sniper had eyes on his target — Roland — for any length of time, he would have seen Roland trying to persuade Julian to hand over the gun. Because Julian had the gun aimed at Roland. Not sure an argument can be made that Julian would have been holding Roland until the police showed up, but it’s flimsy to think that the sniper would not have been able to see what was going on. Roland interposed himself between Julian’s gun and Alec, putting himself in harm’s way.

It’s a noticeable flaw in what’s otherwise a pretty solid episode. And yes, the suit looks better black.

I’m leaning toward the death of Julian’s father as a convenient way for us to get two things: the birth of “Theseus” — Julian becoming someone who apparently has great influence over Kagame — and Kiera remembering that she was responsible for the death of Kellog’s sister in 2077. So it’s connective narrative tissue between the Kellog death to the farmhouse death to Kiera ending up on Kellog’s boat with a drink in her hand. And what happens next?

We cut to another scene.

Some interesting things happen along the way in this one. Kiera admitted to Carlos that she lies to him every day. And while Carlos may have been in a fog when she said it, she also mentioned a family that she has that doesn’t exist yet. How much of that conversation is he going to remember? And given that Kiera was at the farmhouse when “Theseus” went up, and given that Kagame now has Julian under his wing, how close are we to the point where we’re in a predestination paradox?

Theseus is apparently Kagame’s mentor. And Kagame will now by Theseus’ mentor. It’s a causality loop, and no one can tell me otherwise.

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[Official Show Web Site on Syfy]     [Previous recap: “Playtime”]