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The Dead Zone: Revelations

Bruce: "A wealthy widow being taken in by a charismatic man of god. It can't be all coincidence, John."

Gene was once a religious scam artist?

As Bruce so eloquently said, Purdy always has been "iffy." So I guess it didn't surprise me that much that, when he was young and cute, he was also a very bad boy. In a way, Purdy in his Reverend Gold-Digger guise reminded me a bit of Greg Stillson.

This episode finally took off for me when the situation logically expanded to include Gene's relationship with the late Vera Smith. I've always believed Purdy loved Johnny's mother (remember what he did for her in "The House"?) But whether or not Purdy conned Vera Smith into giving him her wealth has always been debatable. I still sorta think he did. Depends on your definition of "con," I suppose.

David Ogden Stiers got to me in the end when he told Johnny, "Clara was the reason I turned to God. Your mother was my reward." He even forgave Jessica for killing him, as it was happening. Purdy has made a lot of mistakes in his life, but I honestly believe that he believes, and that he's trying to atone.

Well, except we still don't know exactly what he promised Janus, and how he fits into the coming Apocalypse.

Bits and pieces:

— The desk clerk asking Johnny and Bruce to pose back to back for her web site was fun. I also thought it was cute that Bruce, as Johnny's best friend, is now semi-famous, too.

— Finding all that important but obscure stuff for Johnny to touch in order to keep the plot going was pretty farfetched. It started to bother me. I mean, would you actually find carnival posters from the sixties that easily? I don't think so.

— Purdy just dedicated the new Vera Smith library. I'm down with that. Libraries are good.

— This episode was directed by John L. Adams (Bruce). Not bad, John. Gee, everyone is getting to direct this season.

— Guest stars Eric Johnson and Sarah-Jane Redmond were both Smallville alumni.

Three stars,

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

1 comment:

  1. johnny not only did not believe a word that gene was telling him but he thought he scammed his mother vera as gene was a very religious man years ago. clara simon was a woman who gene was turning to god for while she was unstable and vera was a woman he loved. vera was always johnny's mother who johnny had to figure out what happened out for her while gene said he wasn't conning her. bruce and johnny were at the hotel with a girl who was a big fan of johnny's was cute before johnny was driving to find gene and what happened to him. johnny and gene had a fight at his house while johnny didn't believe gene conned clara simon and vera.

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