Persons Unknown: The Way Through

“I hate this place.”

I’ve mentioned elsewhere how much it irks me when the writers don’t seem to realize that the characters interact off-screen. Consider me irked.

This episode didn’t pick up where we left off: an entire week of digging has passed since last week. Now, maybe it’s just my inordinate fondness for The Great Escape, but I think that an entire tunnel-digging episode would have been fabulous. You can learn a lot about people when you’re digging together. Digging is hot, boring, dirty work: at the end of the day, over Szechuan eggplant and eggrolls, you’d tell stories. Funny stories, sad stories. You’d open up, because you’d be too tired to shut down. But our characters don’t seem to have done that. They seem to have just…dug.

In silence.

Without even changing their clothes.

That plan didn’t work, or the signal fire. I’d thought the fire would catch, and the people would be trapped in a blazing town with no way out. Instead, the Dharma Initiative dropped off a box of not-enough gas masks. Not surprisingly, the point of the gas masks was not to protect our heroes, but to punish those selfish enough to keep their own masks. Perhaps this is some self-help workshop, like The Game.

And now I’m out of things to say about the plot. That was fast.

Moira continues to be an interesting character, for two reasons: she dribbles out information in odd bits, and she definitely seems to latch onto people. It almost seems like a Survivor strategy: she continues to portray herself as a victim in one-on-one encounters, which means that at least two people will now inadvertently cast themselves in the role of protector if she’s in harm’s way. The second reason? She’s the only character who talks about anything!

Well, except for Blackham and Charlie, who seem to have an odd bond. Blackham saw what appears to be Charlie smothering his wife; Charlie, meanwhile, implied to some people that his wife is alive, but told Blackham that it was a mercy killing. Then Blackham revealed that he’s not really a used-car salesman. That man has an odd effect on his surroundings: he seems to incite people to violence. If he’s a plant, I don’t think he’s the only one. But he might just be playing his own game. A slimy, seedy game.

Janet, meanwhile, had a bit of a breakdown and then pushed through it. How interesting would it have been if there’d been just a hint that she and Joe were sleeping together? Or—even better—if we’d gotten a hint that two unlikely characters, like Charlie and Tori, had indulged in some cold comfort a few days ago, and were now avoiding each other? A touch, a shudder, a glance…I’d hoped for that sort of subtle layering from McQuarrie, but I’m not getting it.

I continue to hold out hope, but this episode really didn’t do much for me. The previews for next week look promising, though.

Bits and Pieces:

• “Never bring a bat to a gun fight.” Love this variation on The Untouchables.

• Tori: “There are some gasses you can’t see?” Is that a serious question?

• The Symbol of the Week is the tiny spoon and the big barrel of ice cream. The spoon will definitely snap before Janet finishes that tub.

• Renbe is being set up. Oh, and the private dick’s name was Edick. Funny.

I couldn’t find a good screenshot for this episode, perhaps because only twenty people are watching this show. So the image is of adorable baby panda stuffed animals hugging. I’d love to watch a show about baby panda toys trapped in a town, talking in their little voices about how to escape. “Oh, no! What do we do now, my panda-friend?” "Eek! We are in peril!" As long as they all survived, of course.

One out of four tiny wooden spoons.

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

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