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Continuum: Minute to Win It

"It's just a weird set-up. You know, imploding."

Liber8 was seeming a bit more sympathetic to me lately. And then they go and do crap like this.

Has Liber8 just been less nuts because Lucas was out of the picture? Seriously, great big cyborged bugs? Innocent (or maybe not so innocent) bystanders kidnapped, modified with primitive CMRs and eventually becoming imploded puddles of gore? Even Travis was having a hard time with it, and that's saying a lot. Although of course, as a supersoldier from the future, Travis has also been cyborged.

And so has Kiera. The future flashforward showed Kiera's controller overriding her refusal to kill an informant. I went through the first two seasons pretty quickly – have we seen someone take over and direct Kiera through her CMR before? The control called Kiera "soldier," too. Like Travis?

That all tied into Alec's plot this week, too. Alec just couldn't turn down a controlling interest in Piron. I knew the minute that Jacqueline, Escher's chief counsel, started showing Alec all the R&D goodies with the creepy body parts and the drones that Alec wouldn't be able to resist; it was like a huge building full of expensive Alec toys. It's interesting that the theme of the episode was mind control, and Alec's choices were essentially overridden by the temptation of an inheritance he couldn't refuse.

Piron isn't Sadtech, which means that the future has been changed again, right? The Sonmanto corporation was changed now that they have future tech too, and holy Cyberdyne Systems, Batman. Why aren't alarms going off at creepy Timecop Cult headquarters? Why was Kiera just dropping by for a cup of coffee? And why didn't Katherine ask about what was happening with the two Alecs? Did I miss something?

Speaking of which, how about that great dual scene with Emily on the street? It was like relationship time travel ping pong, with Week Ahead Alec still desperately in love with her, and current Alec saying he couldn't trust her. (And that was even before he got Escher's file and saw that vid of her in prison.) I especially liked the camera shot where Week Ahead Alec was telling Emily the truth about everything and the shot showed a reflection of a second Emily. Her confused expression was just wonderful.



The Alecs have diverged so much by now that they feel like two different people. Kiera still hasn't killed one of them. In fact, it looked like Week Ahead Alec was living in Kiera's new/old apartment. Fascinating. Is Kiera manipulating Week Ahead Alec, or is he manipulating her?

Bits and pieces:

— Poor Carlos. He's depressed and cynical and just can't see Kiera as the same person he worked with before. Can't blame him.

— Alec's mother didn't tell him Escher was his father before going into a meeting about Alec's inheritance? Bad Alec's Mom, no biscuit. And note how the circular paintings that could be the Grapefruit of Death or possibly the temporal panic room were on the walls of the Piron conference room.

— We learned that in the future, Liber8 found a way to control robot workers and as a result, the robots were all destroyed. That explains why future tech went in the modified human CMR direction.

— Kiera thinks that Curtis killed the earlier Kiera. That would make sense. I think.

— Did Lucas stop seeing Kagame?

— I just loved the morgue guy offering Kiera some Pop Rocks right over the piles of imploded body parts. Even better, Kiera obediently tried them and hated them. It was a little gem of a scene.

— Emily and Kiera both lied to current Alec about knowing Escher was his father. Didn't they? I'm watching episodes twice and I'm still confused about what's going on.

— Emily's real name, and I think we knew this already, is Maya Hartwell. Interesting name for a love interest who is a violent criminal.

— I've been thinking of Week Ahead Alec as Sith Lord Alec, and in this episode, Alec jokingly referred to Escher not telling him the truth with a Star Wars line ("I am your father").

— The object in the vault that Liber8 was looking for might be from a different timeline. It looked like that Davinci Code cryptex thingy. What does it do? Did it make Carlos lose control?

Quotes:

Lucas: "I missed sushi."
Garza: "We can hit some on the way."

Kiera: "What does he bring to the party that no one else does?"
Carlos: "The crazy."
You could say that again, Carlos. Lucas was just super creepy scary this time.

Alec: "It's like an actual mind meld. (Kiera looks confused) It's like the internet for brains."

Lucas: "When did you get so squeamish?"
Travis: "When you turned men into things."
Lucas: "Some men deserve it."
And these executives they're picking up off the street deserved it, just because they work for a possibly evil corporation?

Another fascinating episode, except for the bugs and the gore. Three out of four Pop Rocks,

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

6 comments:

  1. Billie. I love you, you know I do. But I sort of hate that you're reviewing this show. It's making me think about it. It's hurting my brain. I used to just let the confusion wash over me and now I'm trying to connect stuff and make sense of things and I may be developing some kind of brain disorder because of it. Worse, I kind of like the feeling. :)

    I missed the Sonmanto thing. I wonder what Sonmanto could possibly be a reference to? :)

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  2. Yes, we saw Lucas hack Kiera's CMR in Season 1, "Playtime". Remember the great geek duel between Lucas and Alec? "You da man. You da man."

    I've been wondering about Kiera's military history. I don't recall that she was military previous to Alec's history reboot. Travis was military, which is why he got the military grade CMR. Of course, there is darn little space between military and police in 2077, so it might not make much difference. I am suspicious that Alec did change the future, though.

    I also loved the reflection shot of Emily/Myra. But it is interesting that it was Emra who was doubled, not Alec. Maybe that is foreshadowing that she is being duplicitous, too? I don't have any idea, but the shot was so obvious, I have to think it meant something.

    There were reflections all throughout the show. Reflections in windows. Reflections in the posted artwork. Even reflections from overhead at times.

    I like the artwork quite a bit. It is from a Vancouver artist whose work is used in several shows. But in this case, you have pictures of circles and pictures of vertical posts. Female/male imagery?

    About Sonmanto - check out http://www.somantocorp.com/ . Someone has entirely too much time on their hands!

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  3. Escher was sitting in front of that same painting in the museum when Emily shot him. I noticed because I really like the painting!

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  4. Ah...I see you already mentioned that!

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  5. In an earlier episode, Kiera's husband suggests that she apply to CPS and that "with your military experience" she could easily get the job.

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  6. Although I was enthused about Alec traveling back in time to save Emily, I'm now thoroughly confused as to how much of what happened in season 2 has still happened. Since Carlos and Kiera are still working for the VPD (I'm really disappointed not to see the Carlos-Betty-Julian team=up), I guess she never got framed for Gardiner's murder. Is Gardiner's body still sitting in the trunk of a car? Did Kiera still torture and threaten to kill Julian?

    I'm also wondering if the Freelancers inadvertently caused the Time Travel war. The fact that Escher knew about them suggests that he was using knowledge of the future he gained through them to develop future techs for Piron and (perhaps) to influence Alec as a child toward developing advanced techs for Sadtech. Him being dead though surely changes the timeline irrevocably since now Alec is running Piron and Sadtech doesn't exist.

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