The Event Watch: Loyalty

Well hey, looks like we get some character development this week for someone who's not Martinez or Sean...and I can't yet decide if that's a good or bad thing.

First the meat and potatoes of the plot:

Sophia is freed, and en route to meet up with Thomas; but her food's been spiked with a traceable isotope, which will lead the feds right to her. Simon does his best man-on-the-inside routine, stealing the same isotope and dunking it in 40ish people's coffee at a coffee shop. Allowing Sophia to get lost in the confusion from there. Ultimately, it blows Simon's cover; cat's out of the bag, and he's on the run. He cuts his losses and tries to get to Sophia and Thomas before the feds, who are now tracking her via old-fashioned, video methods. Simon heads off to a warehouse where Thomas and Sophia were to rendezvous, but the building starts to collapse with Simon and the feds inside. Sophia is repulsed by Thomas's willingness to kill yet again, but can't talk Simon into fleeing with them, which of course leads to a Simon flashback (more on this later).

Elsewhere, Leila and Sean debrief each other, and Leila learns that Samantha's missing and her mom is dead. Also, her dad is sort of missing, but Sean has some ideas on that front. They head back to Leila's home to search for clues, Scooby-Doo style. They find a file on the Alaska detainment camp...and a new, non-Vicky woman who also likes to point a gun at them. Sean gets the jump on her and she spills the beans: she's a former journalist who's been working with Michael on unraveling the conspiracy, and lets us know that Michael had once had to divert a flight over Alaskan airspace and spotted the camp. Somehow, in the process, learning the whole truth about the others/freeliens. Uh, how does that happen in a flyover?

Anyway, that's pretty much it for the big, mythology-building parts of the episode. Let's look at the problem spot: this week, we keep an eye on Simon, whose story bounces back and forth between his present-day life as a government spook/Sophia's protector/man on the inside, and his post-escape from Alaskan life in the 1950s, where he falls in love with a human. Along the way, we learn something else about the others/freeliens: loyalty is valued above love, to a fault. We sort of learned this a few weeks ago when one of them shanked the love of her life, but a little healthy reinforcement is a good thing, yes?

As mentioned above, Blake Sterling's placed a radioactive blood-tracker inside Sophia and let her go, turning her into a homing pigeon that leads right to the freeliens, and Simon's got his hands full with that. Later in the episode, the theme of Simon's loyalty to the people that birthed him versus the people he's spent the last sixty-odd years with hits home, in the form of a collapsing building. The intriguing choice here is that his choice – between scampering off with Thomas and Sophia, or staying behind and saving some human lives – falls on the side of the humans. At various points across the last six episodes, then, Simon's betrayed both of his affiliations, and sorta pays for it by apparently getting buried under some falling building. If this is, in fact, Simon's end, I'm sad to see him go, but I'd be a heck of a lot sadder if he'd had some development along the way, instead of as a clunky "done in one/death" episode. For the Lost fans reading, he sorta got Nikki-and-Paulo'd.

Simon's flashbacks in this episode deal with his life in Venice Beach in the 50s, frolicking and falling in love. We also see the same relationship in 2000, as Simon works his way up the CIA and is accosted by his lady love, now five decades older and afflicted with Alzheimer’s. He turns the cold shoulder, shuts his feelings down, and walks away from her. Later visiting her at the nursing home to give her a sunflower, promised decades ago. He tells her that if it were up to him, he would've stayed. She tells him it was up to him. It's a clunky scene, and it feels like someone watched The Notebook in a bad mood before starting to write this episode.

So, to sum up: we move forward a bit this week. We also may have lost our first main character. I'd be wistful, if the writing had prodded me to care. I think, all in all, that's my problem with

[[ the event ]] ; it's all plot, with not a lot of lasting character development to really hook me. And when they try to make up for lost time, as with this episode, it doesn't really satisfy.

There's always room for improvement, though. Here's hoping we get a little, when I see you back here in a couple weeks for November sweeps! Sound off on your thoughts below!