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The Dead Zone: Panic

"Next time the kid wants to go bowling, just go bowling."

Panic Room with a touch of Die Hard.

Last season, they were moving toward making Johnny into super action guy. So far this season, they haven't repeated that mistake. Johnny's appeal (for me, anyway) has always been as the ordinary guy with an extraordinary gift, and that's what he was here. Well, okay, he was channeling Bruce Willis just a little. But it didn't go over the top.

While trying to elude the bad guy with the Willy Nelson braids and his stupider and less scary partner in crime, Johnny had a second set of visions set in 1941 that conveniently showed him several secret aspects of his own house. Johnny's father Herb, who was a major character in the original Stephen King book but only a recurring character in the series (what with him being dead and all) showed that even as a child, he was a good guy. Hey, not everyone could talk a heartless mine owner into sheltering a Japanese family right after Pearl Harbor. (Johnny's grandfather Smith originally owned the mine in which Johnny and Walt were trapped in the season two episode "Descent.")

I particularly liked J.J. in this episode. He didn't do the cliched kid thing; i.e., he didn't panic or start crying. He actually saved all their lives by kicking the bad guy in the first place. Then he did what Johnny told him to do, like helping the injured Randy, and correctly timing the banging on the pipes to cover Johnny rescuing Walt. Unfortunately, J.J. now appears to be showing a tendency toward pyromania. This can't be good.

Bits and pieces:

— Walt and J.J. were finally back. We still haven't seen Sarah, though.

— When he was crawling through the vents, Johnny did a take-off of the Bruce Willis crawling through the vents in Die Hard.

— The scene where Walt was captured and beaten was immediate enough that I was mildly worried (again) they were planning to kill him off.

— The moral of the story? Don't leave your cell phone in the car.

Another good 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.

1 comment:

  1. Crawling through air ducts was also evocative of Judd Nelson in "Breakfast Club." ...if AMH had made a reference to losing his pencil, I would have about died laughing. XD

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