CONTINUUM Twists the Plot & Makes Heads Hurt … In a Good Way
Episode 2.08 “Second Listen”
[photos: Syfy]
Kiera gets Alec to reactivate Elena’s CMR, even though she’s dead. They manage to get some energy to the chip to see a face — looks like Elena’s son, but since Kiera gives the photo to Gardiner, it seems this is a new face. Kiera and Gardiner get one step closer to tracking down the body snatchers, but he’s still a jerk. And the two kids they confront about the grave-robbing? Get out on a technicality, just in time to die of an aneurism — both of them.
Speaking of jerks, Kellog is all over Alec’s case for letting Jason work in the lab. Not sure if I’m too keen on the direction Kellog’s character arc is going. He’s obsessed with ARC technology, and the time travel research — while the whole “massively powerful Orange Slice computer” could lead to ARC becoming a reality, Kellog wants Alec totally focused on ARC and not time travel. Even knowing Alec’s future, Kellgo wants to manipulate events so he personally benefits.
Alec, meantime, suspects he’s got more of a connection with Jason. He makes the really big leap that if his mother so easily lied on the stand at Julian’s trial, what else might she have lied about? Like maybe Alec’s father isn’t really dead?
After seeing that the “Section Six” body snatcher was at the courthouse, Kiera confronts Escher, who tells her the guy is a freelancer. They can be identified by tiny little tattoos between their fingers. Something that shows up on the body in the morgue — the guy Emily killed last week.
Turns out, there are several of these guys, all using IDs of dead people. All set up through a little office run by a man named Fisker, whose secretary identifies our body snatcher as Mr. Warren. Gardiner — ever the dog with the bone — takes the files and gets one more step closer to his heroic moment I’ve been predicting.
The main thread in this episode has to do with Garza, who had some “quality time” with older Alec. And we see that Kiera has a bit of history with Garza before her arrest, too. Garza has some impressive deductive and observational skills, which Old Alec thinks will come in handy for the task he’d like to give her. It’s clear that he’s planning the time travel event, which is something hinted at in the pilot. He sends her back with a task — and she kidnaps Young Alec and takes him to the site that will one day become the first Sadtec location.
Intercutting between 2013 and 2077 makes an interesting build to the resolution between Garza and Alec at Site One. She says she’s been sent back to kill him, but he’s convinced her that she could make a change. Alec, already loaded with the message from himself, figures out Garza is the failsafe. She’s in place with the task of killing him, and Alec’s already got things figured differently. All of those episodes building up to the whole point of changes being made to the future. Alec’s mention of a girlfriend touches a chord with Garza. That must be enough of a difference to convince Garza to let him go — for now.
After all of this, Alec finally works up the gumption to confront Kellog and tell him what to do with himself. Alec’s the boss. Is this what Kellog’s been working toward with his annoying jerk act? Will we see a shift in the dynamic?
And Gardiner gets his heroic moment. Sort of. Because when he goes back to Fisker’s office, he comes face to face with Mr. Warren and the guy who has Elena’s body — just before they kill him.
Dun Dun Dunnnnn.
[Official Show Web Site on Syfy] [Previous recap: “Second Degree”]
