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Continuum: Wasted Minute

"Rejoice, Kiera. He is making the decision for you."

It's Bizarro World. Good is bad and bad is good.

CEO Alec is obviously the one that will preserve the original timeline, the future that Kiera and the Freelancers want. And yet, when Kiera finally chose the "right" Alec, she immediately regretted it. CEO Alec doesn't like or trust Kiera any more and vice versa, while Week Ahead Alec is still her friend, the sweet one who is in love with Emily.

And now Week Ahead Alec is in his underwear in Freelancer prison, and Kiera is messed up about it – especially after her CMR finally synched up and she discovered Curtis was the one who killed her earlier self. Why did Curtis do it? Was it on Katherine's orders, even though she denied it? How can Kiera continue on her current path when she knows that it's morally wrong? Will she help Week Ahead Alec escape, even if it endangers her future and her son?

Hey, if anyone is smart enough to escape on his own, it's Alec. Kiera and Garza escaped, didn't they?

The Alec versus Alec scenes were again a hoot to watch. (Loved the reference to Spy vs. Spy.) Week Ahead Alec, looking uncomfortable in a cheap suit, knocked his CEO doppelganger out, and I absolutely loved that the injury was in the same place as Week Ahead's scar. Throughout the episode, I kept rooting for someone, anyone – Emily, Kiera, even Alec himself – to kill CEO Alec and replace him with Week Ahead Alec, so that he could take control of Piron and blast the timeline to smithereens.

And yet... is the Alec I've always liked still hiding inside Mr. CEO? It's interesting that CEO Alec is still obsessed with Emily. (Loved her kneeing him when she palmed his access card; it sure looked like she meant it.) It seems so obvious to me that Week Ahead Alec is the one who should continue, and yet he had made plans to remove himself from the timeline, and was worried that the timeline would self-correct. (I thought that was the Freelancers' job.)



I was also wondering about "Halo," the wrist health monitor. Is it something only CEO Alec would introduce? If he were replaced with the older Alec, would it still happen? If it doesn't, would it change the future health of millions?

Even Liber8 was on the bizarro side of right this time. (They seem to alternate every week.) They exposed Sonmanto for creating a disease as well as its cure for the sake of big future profits. Liber8 is making progress on its goal to stop the formation of the Evil League of Evil, a.k.a. the Corporate Congress, and that's a good thing.

And Carlos got into trouble at work for pointing out that Liber8 was right. At least Carlos and Kiera seem to be back in synch. He's not treating her like a stranger any more.

Bits:

— The Kiera flashforward to when she was a victim of the bio-weapon was to 2066, when she was still a soldier.

— The Freelancers sound more all the time like a religious cult. Which makes sense, if they initially formed a thousand years ago. There's nothing like a zealot.

— If WA Alec and Emily had managed to disappear somewhere, would that have worked? Would the timeline have remained whole?

— Carlos gave Kiera body armor she didn't need. You know, for show. Why didn't they take gas masks?

— What were Katherine and her minions discussing early in the episode? The sixteen channels at once, the revelation? Was it about the Alec problem? I'm confused.

— Betty is angry about not being trusted and apparently she's still doing her job.

— Ward Solomon the lawyer has said publicly that he represents Liber8.

— This episode was directed by actress Amanda Tapping. Woo hoo!

Quotes:

Kiera: "It's like watching pixels dry."

Kiera: "I'm looking over my shoulder every day for someone who might want to kill me twice."

Week Ahead Alec: "I'm the time traveling grim reaper. Everything I touch turns to death."

Week Ahead Alec: (to Kiera) "Sometimes you look at me and I get this horror movie chill."

Carlos: "Maybe Alec could help. Or... Alec could help."
Best line in the episode.

Kiera: "Is it true, Curtis? Are you a freelancing freelancer?"

Three out of four drying pixels,

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

3 comments:

  1. Nice review Billie.

    Following you on Twitter and landed here to read.

    I agree with much of what you said. I'm still not convinced that CEO Alec is the "one" that brings about the future Keira and the Freelancers are trying to preserve.

    For one, that follows your TV rule #2. He's the obvious one .. so that means he's probably NOT the one. :)

    I keep flirting with the nature vs nurture questions with Alec and Alec. What inherently makes him "him" in both cases is inside of both (their nature is the same).

    That means that the traits of CEO Alec are within Week Ahead Alec and visa versa.

    It's just circumstances that have split the two in how they are reacting to things (their personalities are being nurtured differently).

    The thought occurred to me that Keira could have very well brought out the "CEO" in Week Ahead Alec to emerge later. After all, betrayal by others is part of what brought CEO Alec into being and now Week Ahead has been turned upon by Keira in an eerily similar way.

    Food for thought. :) Nicely done!

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  2. I'm surprised that Kiera wasn't in on "her" murder. Other than a tossed off comment this week, she seemed generally unconcerned that someone might still be gunning for her, so I thought for sure she either did the deed herself or knew that the Freelancers had done it.

    I don't know what to make of the Alec situation now. If CEO Alec still loves Emily (which would make sense --- you don't just stop loving someone on a dime, even if you feel they've betrayed you), then he could still lead us to a better future. I like Christopher's suggestion that both Alec's are still in play, and at this point either could bring about the Freelancer-desired future, or the Liber8-desired future.

    Katherine and her minions seem to have been discussing some mysterious person behind Door #1. Someone who had future information, but who failed to predict or see the two Alecs situation. I'm curious as hell to find out who it is. Another version of Kagame, maybe?

    I wondered about the lack of gas masks, too. They knew these guys were making a deadly poison, wouldn't gas masks be prudent?

    Does anyone else get confused when "Curtis" gets referenced in write-ups? My first thought is always to think it is a reference to Roger Cross's character, because he played Curtis on 24 all those years. I always have to correct myself. "No. Roger Cross is Travis. Terry Chen is Curtis." Ack!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jess, I do that all the time. I didn't know why at first until I remembered that Roger Cross was Curtis on 24.

    ReplyDelete

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