I watched this episode for the first time last night. It was a difficult episode to watch. For one thing it didn’t have the normal feel of a Continuum episode - it was excessively dark. Perhaps because the VPD was hunting a serial killer that Kiera was brought in to help solve cold-case style in 2077 because she had a higher-than-usual deductive reasoning capability in the CPS. But Kiera was acting CRAY-CRAY over this case and it didn’t feel like the Agent Cameron that we’ve used to over a season and a half. For another thing Matthew Kellog was acting almost sinister. Instead of the buddy-buddy act he had put on with Kiera and Alec so far all of the sudden he was a shady and forceful businessman that drove Alec’s new girlfriend, Emily, out of the Lab/Torchwood/Batcave. These two arcs overshadowed everything else in the episode to me and I couldn’t appreciate the other massive bones that were thrown our way.
In the wow-that-happened-but-I-almost-didn’t-care-about-it department for this episode:
-Kiera meets Mr Escher face-to-face through Dillon (WOW!)
-Kiera TELLS CARLOS EVERYTHING (WOW!)
The Escher thing has oh-so-many possibilities. All we were given in this episode was a meet-and-great with Escher but it was one of the things that set the stage for Kiera to tell Carlos that she was a Time Traveler. We also find out that Escher took care of Dillon and has his own extreme agenda. The reference at the end of the episode when Matthew attempts to buy the future tech from the venturist definitely puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? I look forward to more meetings with Escher.
So Kiera almost dies. Plus Escher put her in a mind frame that she was alone. Plus she was acting crazy over solving this case. Plus she is worried that she has put things in motion to totally change the future to the point where neither she nor her family exists in the future. So she tells Carlos that she is a Time Traveler. Which on one hand is about time because Carlos was too good to keep from questioning her any longer and on the other hand sends this whole series to a completely new level. Make no mistake about it, this was a BIG DEAL in Continuum but the way the episode was set up I almost didn’t care about it.
Watching Nora is interesting. It’s like she is still sitting back and observing. But observing for who? Herself? Liber8? The VPD? I still don’t have any sort of read on her.
Watching Betty now that we know she is aligned with Liber8 is also interesting. You KNOW at some point in time that she is going to cause something major to happen, but you just don’t know when that’s going to be. Also, for the second week in a row we didn’t see any main Liber8 members. You know that they are active and it is scarey to think of what they could be putting together with all this extra time away from active VPD scrutiny.
I missed Gardiner in this episode too. Unless I’m forgetting that he was in one of the VPD scenes as they were trying to figure out what was going on with the serial killer I didn’t see him at all. I still think he’s a good guy but you never know what he’s up to.
And talking about missing people, I’m missing Julian too. What is that boy up to in prison?
Finally, the Emily-Alec thing is definitely multi-faceted. I can’t believe he let her into the Lab/Torchwood/Batcave. I further can’t believe that he didn’t just stand up to Matthew about having her in there. This is definitely not going to stop here and will be a major plot line.
All-in-all this was far from my favorite episode. I wouldn’t show it to people as a teaser episode for the whole series. But in true Continuum fashion it still drove the main plots along. There isn’t a stand-alone episode in the bunch. Hopefully the next one will be much better.
~Shooter Out
