TOUCH: Sacrifice, Mystery and New Connections

Episode 109: “Music of the Spheres”

I have to say that I’m continually impressed by international nature of Touch and I marvel at how they’re able to find so many bilingual actors. This week saw one of the primary plotlines taking place in Brazil, where a cafe owner with no remaining family struggles to keep her family business afloat while also being courted by an idealistic guitarist who dreams of making it big in New York.

The show seems to have reached a good balance between the seemingly unrelated global story threads and the path that Jake and Martin take that leads to later connections. This time, however, I was able to guess pretty early on who was connected to whom, and what the end result would be. I did like the simplicity and cleanliness of things, and I’m torn between whether one more thread would have made it more interesting, or more cluttered.

This week’s number was 55124, with musical tones are being used to represent each number, courtesy of the touchpad tablet device that evil Aunt Abigail gave to Jake in a previous episode. As usual, a series of apparent coincidences lead Jake and Martin to a young man unable to speak due to a brain injury. Jake plays him the number and music sequence, and the boy appears to understand.

Martin had hoped that Jake could use the tablet to form words, since one of the tablet’s apps correlates numbers with letters: A=1, B=2 and so on. Instead, Jake gives it to the boy, who can finally type out words and communicate for the first time.

Besides the major storylines and events of this episode, a number of interesting things happened to build toward the two-hour season finale in a couple of weeks.

First, it was confirmed that Amelia, of the “Amelia Sequence,” was (or perhaps still is) a real person. Specifically, a little girl who used to live at the board and care facility that Jake now stays at. Clea, upon seeing a photo in Arthur Teller’s things, realizes that Amelia was on the security footage at the facility on the night Teller died.

The other occupant of the office space that Teller was renting for his research, a young Jewish diamond cutter, informs her that Teller “worked her hard” during his research, and as a result, he lost his tenure and was kicked out. Which begs the obvious question, how was Teller using this girl in order to further his research? How did it wear her out in some way? Is she connected to the mysterious Room 6 somehow? How did she appear on the security footage as a little girl, years after Teller had left the facility?

The diamond cutter has more revelations in store. In Hasidic Judaism, mystics believe that the world contains the Tzadikim Nistarim, or the 36 righteous ones, hidden saints who help humankind. He believes Jake might be one of them.

On a personal note, you want to hear something freaky? Remember how last week I told you that my childhood home’s address was 318, the same as the key number in the pilot episode? I happen to be into the fragrance oils made by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, and recently scored an assortment of sample vials on eBay. One of them is Tzadikim Nistarim. Seriously. I received them last week and had literally just been looking at them when the preview for this week’s show came on, talking about the 36.

Obviously, Tim Kring is aware of a number of interesting spiritual traditions, or he wouldn’t be able to write Touch. I’m not even going to say “a show like Touch” because there is no other show like Touch. It’s essentially mysticism for the masses. Numerology, symbolism, patterns, fate, and more.

One more thing that Kring brings to this week’s episode is his love of finely-made guitars. Most people are unaware that he personally collects acoustic guitars, and, following the truism of “write what you know,” he made the collector’s value of a special guitar a key part of this week’s storyline.

At the end of the day, this episode’s theme was about sacrifice just as much as it was about music. People give up things dear to them, take risks for others and learn how to handle situations beyond their control with grace and understanding and strength. Even Martin, who’s already lost so much, learned a little bit more about that this week:

“Maybe he doesn’t want to talk. Maybe it’s my job as his father to be okay with that.”

[Official Show Site at Fox]     [Previous Episode: “Zone of Exclusion”]