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The Dead Zone: Outcome

Johnny: "This is serious, okay? Real death. Real pain."
Elaine: "You don't think I know real pain? I'm in my mid-thirties and I'm still dating."

This was a perfect example of the winning Dead Zone formula.

Johnny and Sarah's friend Elaine worked together to resolve one of Johnny's visions of upcoming death and destruction. Essentially, Elaine was doing what Bruce used to do: acting as Johnny's lieutenant and accomplice. She loved it, too, and I thought she had a great sense of humor.

So why not just bring Bruce back, instead? Really? (I'm not going to let this one go any time soon.)

I think the point of having Elaine instead of Bruce was that Elaine had a whole different perspective on Johnny. As Sarah's best friend, she knew everything about the long, strange Johnny/Sarah relationship, and once she realized that Johnny was a great guy, she was ready to push him to get off his ass and commit to Sarah. This in turn led to the realization that Johnny still sees himself as a pariah who brings pain to the people around him. Which certainly wasn't the case here, was it? He not only saved a bunch of lives, he helped three other couples with serious problems as well. (I'm just going to gloss over the fact that Johnny also caused the explosion in the first place.)

The explosion vision and the people frozen in the air was visually really interesting, although it had to be wildly uncomfortable for the extras. And the final vision where the gun dropped and went off had a real emotional kick, at least for me. Good one.

Bits and pieces:

— Sarah wasn't in this episode. But J.J. was, specifically in order to tell us that Sarah was happy again.

— I thought Elaine looked like Sarah would if she had been cast as a nerd.

— I've seen (and reviewed) every episode of this series, and I'm certain we've never seen Elaine before.

— The stereotypical disabled, suicidal vet character was less stereotypical here because she was a woman. That was different. Good for them.

Quotes:

J.J.: "Mom's back into cooking again. It's awesome."

Johnny: "You design crosswords for a living. Do you actually have to take them on vacation with you, too?"
Elaine: "It's either puzzles or Hector, my cabana boy."

Elaine: "Could you tell me where I can find the bus from Montpelier? I'm meeting a guy from Match dot com. He just got paroled."

I liked this one. Three out of four stars,

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

2 comments:

  1. there was a explosion at the bus station when johnny had to stop it from taking the whole station and taking lives. a lot of people were going to die if johnny didn't do anything and elaine was there with him trying to talk him into marrying sarah is there anyway sarah's going to let johnny back into her life. elaine is sarah's friend when she and johnny were going together. johnny and elaine worked together to figure out his visions of the explosion at the station as he was having a vision of the explosion in stop motion was cool. elaine asked johnny about the kiss in the car with sarah that she told elaine about as johnny said he was great kisser.

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  2. "Sarah wasn't in this episode. But J.J. was, specifically in order to tell us that Sarah was happy again." I like the subtle looks they had the guys give. Johnny didn't seem phased or bummed at all that JJ referred to Walt as his dad; he seemed to empathize, acknowledge JJ's feelings, pause and reflect. It was nice to see that JJ was uncomfortable saying that to his other father.

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