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The Dead Zone: Plague

"How exactly do you know the governor?"

This looked like it was going to be a bad episode about something like SARS, and it wasn't. It was chilling. The bubbles, and the visions associated with the bubbles, were very freaky. So were the faces of the sick kids, and all the people disappearing from the stairs.

Johnny's reputation and influence were almost enough to contain the thing – almost, but not quite. Walt was immediately ready to lock the place down, and Purdy called the governor. All that, and it still wasn't enough; if Johnny hadn't infected himself so that he could "touch" the virus, they all would have died.

The other big plot point was Johnny's relationship, or non-relationship, with his own son. Johnny is finding it difficult to build a relationship with J.J.; Sarah and Walt are doing their best but are uncomfortable with the situation; and of course, J.J. doesn't have a clue what's going on. Having a frantic Johnny infect himself with J.J.'s blood could probably be classified as a major father-son bonding activity.

Bits and pieces:

— Anthony Michael Hall is always good, but his performance when he infected himself was terrific.

— One of the freakiest visuals I've ever seen on this show was John experiencing his own autopsy.

— The multiple cell phone scene was very cute.

— Walt hugged John. :)

— The young actor who plays J.J. had more lines here than he has previously had, and he did pretty well.

— It was interesting that patient zero for this thing was a flight attendant. Patient zero for AIDS was a flight attendant.

— Jim Pratt the health inspector was played by Stephen Tobolowski, whom I will forever see as the insurance guy from Groundhog Day. "Ned? Ned Ryerson?"

— Phyllis referred to Johnny's prediction of the fire at Cathy's.

Quotes:

Johnny: "I knew you'd segue to Bible study. Pick your allegory, right? A plague, the storm, the rise of reality TV?"
Purdy was offering to help John get partial custody of J.J., wasn't he?

Guy: "I like to blow smoke rings, man. Like one of those hobbit dudes."

Walt to suspects: "Down on the floor! Kiss the shag!"

So let me guess. The moral of this story was that drug use is bad?

Excellent. Three out of four stars, and they're two for two,

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

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