CONTINUUM's Affairs are In Order

Episode 107 “The Politics of Time”

This week, Continuum focuses on the “My Partner is a Suspect” meme in procedurals, and it at least doesn’t devolve too terribly much into cliché.

When Alicia the reporter turns up dead, Kiera and Carlos get pulled into the case despite the fact that it doesn’t look too much like Libr8 is involved. Of course, Kiera figures there’s something up from the get-go when Carlos starts touching things in the apartment without gloves, thereby contaminating the scene — because he was there the night before, and they weren’t just talking shop.

Carlos, in the meantime, figures his buddy Jim (the Union Boss) is involved somehow. They’ve all known each other for a very long time, it seems, and Carlos is worried that Alicia’s work had her at odds with Jim, who’s about to win a very important election and could save the world. Or at least, make things better for workers. Turns out, he’s right, as Jim reveals that Alicia was working on a huge scandal piece that would have ruined a lot of plans for

[Let me interrupt myself here. When Carlos makes the pitch to Kiera about how Jim Martin could really be The One who makes a Difference, it felt very out of character for Carlos. 1) he’s not that long-winded, usually; and 2) it just sounded hackneyed, pie-in-the-sky rhetoric you hear in the introduction to the stump speech. It just felt odd as it was presented.]

So Kiera figures there’s stuff going on she doesn’t know about, that she needs to know about, so she treks back over to the crime scene to scope it out using her high tech gadgetry from the future. Which gives her the ability to see all of the places where Carlos and Alicia… uhm… bonded, I guess you could say.

Alec thinks all of this high-tech wizardry is cool — and is this another example of Transparent Aluminum? — and he’s got Kiera’s suit bathing in a solution that aids the self-repair. And the suit is hooked up to Alec’s gear, giving him all sorts of access to government satellites, communications networks, cell phone towers —

— which is how they can reconstruct the scene of the crime as it happened that night, using the “interference” in cell phone signals from the bodies of the occupants in the building that night. Now, I’m not sure just how much of that is even remotely possible, even in the future, but let’s accept the hand-waving for the moment and take it at face value (like we do with the initial premise of the show). Kiera is able to figure out that Carlos is innocent.

And in a nice bit of editing, Kiera is watching the past murder while the actual murderer is sneaking into Carlos’ apartment, where he manages to fight off his assailant — from the shower, no less — after using a piece of broken glass to slice the right arm.

I have to admit, I pegged the wife to be the one who actually did it, with the Martin aide a close second. They’re both the same size and shape as the attacker, so kudos to the show for the red herring(s). Especially given that the flash-forwards all related to Kiera finding out her husband had an “affair” right before their wedding. (Does that count as an affair if they’re not married yet?) So the entire episode is about Kiera learning whom she can and cannot trust, in both times.

To find that Libr8 is indeed involved adds a new layer to Kagame’s scheming. Now he has a top labor boss in his pocket. And what’s this “war” all about? Keeping the corporations from taking over the world governments.

I just hope the season stays away from more hackneyed political puffery like they gave Victor Webster to say this week. It just comes out overdone and out of synch with the tone of the show.

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[Official Show Web Site on Syfy]     [Previous recap: “Time’s Up”]