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La Femme Nikita: The Evil That Men Do

Walter: "Calm down."
Nikita: "I've been calm long enough."

This was an odd episode with a lot of separate pieces that weren't very cohesive: Nikita vs. Operations, Michael and the Collective, Quinn undercover for Mr. Jones, Adam tacked on at the end.

Operations and Nikita, celebrity death match. It's high noon, and there's no room in Section for both of them. The struggle for power between them has been one of the highlights of season five for me. I loved his shock when she shot at him in Section. I also liked the sequences with Operations on his own, staggering through the woods. He managed to look both out of place and competent at coping with the situation at the same time.

Jones believes that Nikita is the Jesus Christ of Section. Is she really? Operations said that Nikita didn't have the stuff because she showed compassion; when it came right down to it, Nikita couldn't let Operations die. Was it his experience and knowledge that made her spare him? Operations assumed it was an emotional decision, but I'm not so sure. Maybe the savior analogy isn't that far off. Treating people humanely has its advantages. Maybe, if she were in charge, Nikita would remake Section into something much better.

Jones told Nikita, "I want you to take charge personally. If you find him alive, eliminate him." Yeah, that'll happen. Hasn't Jones been monitoring Nikita's progress for the last seven years? If he hasn't noticed in all that time how Nikita feels about Michael, he hasn't been paying attention.


No Michael in this episode, but at least they were talking about him all the time. And there was exoneration for him, which wasn't a surprise. Nikita is certain Michael wants to buy his way back into Section for Adam's sake. Makes sense to me.

I'm more than ready for Michael to come back now.

Bits and pieces:

— Quinn got her turn in the chair, but not for long. I knew she was working for Center; all the cool people do these days. Can I call it?

— If Michael can't find Adam, how on earth will the Collective? I'm still finding the Collective to be way too pedestrian to be frightening. They don't seem either interesting or flamboyant. Villains need to be one or the other.

— Center doesn't do much for me, either. It's way too bland and futuristic. And the Mr. Jones hologram was a little too too.

— Jones actually showed affection for Nikita. He kissed her cheek.

— Operations called Jones "Philip."

— Bad graphic when Operations' plane was hit the second time.

— "Article Three" seems to be a death match situation. "Protocol Eight" appears to involve exploding something that will sacrifice personnel along with the enemy to cover the retreat of more important personnel.

— Operations wears a Rolex. Of course he does.

— Roy Dupuis directed this episode. He did fine. He appears to like interesting angles and long shots, occasionally from above.

Quotes:

Jones: "You really have faith in your power over him, don't you? How much power does he have over you?"

Operations: "Killing you would have sabotaged the mission."
Nikita: "I think you hate me enough to pay that price."

Jones: "Congratulations. It appears you're alive again."
Operations: "She doesn't have what it takes. This proves it."

This episode wasn't perfect, but there was a lot to like about it. Two out of four stars,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

6 comments:

  1. I am unable to find sufficiently derogatory adjectives to describe this episode except to say that the ineptitude of the writers has reached new depths.

    Spoilers follow...

    Let me get this straight: Mr. Jones, the head of this entire anti-terrorist organization and therefore supposedly a strategic genius, commits treason by leaking the location of Operations’ plane to the Collective, which results in exposing a level 9 operative to capture by the enemy. The utter stupidity of this treachery is mind-boggling, as any idiot could reason that the success of this plan to eliminate Operations depends entirely on chance, and Operations surviving the attack is an easily-foreseeable possibility.

    Is treason a condition of employment at Oversight/Centre? First Hillinger, then George, and now Mr. Jones. Oh, and big surprise – Quinn is really a spy for Mr. Jones. We’ve seen all this before – can someone please tell the writers that recycling plot twists renders them ineffective?

    Worst of all, there are apparently no consequences for treason if you are the head of Centre. At one point, Jones claims that he has colleagues that have to be informed of Nikita’s rescue of Michael, but I guess these same colleagues don’t care if Jones himself leaks intel to the enemy and jeopardizes the security of all of Section with his inept plan.

    Mr. Jones’ actions just don’t make sense on any level: at the end of the episode, he’s ready to sentence Operations to death, so why didn’t he just order Paul cancelled in the first place rather than cause a security risk by crashing the plane? And what a hypocrite, making Nikita feel guilty for the dead operatives when Jones himself instigated the entire fiasco!

    The way the writers keep depicting Mr. Jones, I actually prefer Operations in charge of Section. At least Operations shows more intelligence than Jones, as he was able to figure out that Michael was the mole without the help of a ridiculous prognosticating computer program.

    By the way, now that Mr. Jones knows that Michael is single-handedly besting all of Section (“We are losing very very badly”), why would he want Nikita to “inherit” his position when Michael has proven himself superior both tactically and strategically? All Mr. Jones would have to do to ensure Michael’s cooperation is guarantee that Michael gets to keep his son, which is only fair since Jones himself got to keep Michelle while he ran Centre.

    Once again, the writers have sacrificed logic for poorly-executed plot twists.

    Continuity Issues:
    In the teaser, Jones lists four possible suspects for the mole before mentioning Michael: Operations, Quinn, Walter, and O’Brien (who is now dead). Except last episode there were only two suspects, and both Operations and O’Brien were exonerated.

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is an overlooked quote in one of the LFN season 5 episodes. Since I don't have the episode available to watch, and I haven't seen it in at least ten years, I'm going by my memory in the distant hope that someone will correct it, as it's one of my more fond memories of LFN:

    To avoid spoilers, I'll simply say, that Nikita says something to this effect:
    "It's not because you lack mercy. It's because you lack the objectivity that would result from having a shred of it".
    Reasonably sure I got the gist of it, but I hope someone will correct it …
    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are you thinking of the fence scene in "Four Light Years Farther" (s4 ep22):
      Nikita: You'll stay in Section, where your status will be reviewed in seven years.
      Operations: Because I lack compassion?
      Nikita: Because you lack the good judgement that comes from having a small dose of it, Paul.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous, I did a Google search of what you said and it came up with the episode "Let No Man Put Asunder." Hope that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Just managed to somehow watch LFN S5E7. She never utters those words to anyone in "Let No Man Put Asunder". Given the plot's progress, my guess was S5E6, if not prior.
    Anyone have screenplays handy?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I did enjoy the Depuis direction. And some of the interesting action scenes were back. Felt like a good mix of the old and new...

    ReplyDelete

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