“Where You Belong” aired on December 10, 2019
Written by: Kendra Chanae Chapman
Directed by: Paul McGuigan
Grade: 4,5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Raising the stakes for the winter-break or in season finales has been a long-time modus operandi of paranormal shows since time immemorial. Emergence joins the convoy with “Where You Belong” – and does so with success I should add – via the promise of extra layers added to its core mystery and a startling revelation about one of its main characters.

It’s a welcome turn of events considering that a charismatic villain (and actor) was written off and the ‘new villain’ replacing him was pacified, all within a span of two episodes. I mentioned in my review of “American Chestnut” that the show suddenly found itself in need of a potent antagonist. “Where You Belong” adequately addresses that issue and pushes the envelope further by tagging a well-liked character to the so-called villain’s side. I am not using the term ‘so-called’ lightly here, because I am not convinced that Benny is a bad guy, so to speak, despite emerging at the 11^th hour as an A.I. collaborating with the merciless Helen (Rowena King).

For that matter, I am not entirely sure Helen is acting in bad faith herself. Could they simply be motivated by self-preservation? Most likely. Could they, from their perspective, be kidnapping Piper in the name of saving her? Probably. Are these acts wrong or malicious? It depends on which side of the fence you stand. This is why “Where You Belong” works for the most part. It infuses a fresh set of intrigues into the show’s overall arc without foraying into the land of the absurd, and piques the viewers’ curiosity for the upcoming batch of episodes in January.

The outing picks things up in the hotel room where Helen brutally executed Alan to close out the previous one. I have never read an interview or an article centering on the accomplished director Paul McGuigan who also helms this episode, but having seen several of his past works, I am beginning to wonder if he has a mirror fetish. That being said, McGuigan is on top of his game throughout this episode. He also directed “Pilot” which ended, if you remember, with the terrific scene of Piper taking the chip out of her neck while looking into the mirror (or, into the camera). This time, we see Helen looking at herself in the mirror (or, into the camera) and casually applying fresh lipstick as she tells the person on the other end of the phone that she is heading to Long Island next. Another mirror-camera scene follows a few minutes later, this time with Jo and Piper, during which Piper comes clean about taking the chip out of her neck because, she adds, it was prompting her to leave the house and she did not want to.

Squeezed between these mirror scenes are two dialogues taking place at the house in the aftermath of Piper’s luminous upgrade at the backyard in “American Chestnu.” Both scenes are geared to ensure that you become an ardent Mia fan, if you were not already one. In the first dialogue, she essentially reassures Piper, in the most lovely and sisterly way possible, and without saying the exact words, that she will always stand by her side.

The second one begins with Abby, Alex, Ed, and Jo talking inside the house, still recovering (except for Jo) from the shock of seeing Piper’s body glow earlier and learning that she is not human. Under pressure from the questions flowing her way, Jo comes clean about some of Piper’s secrets such as her physical make-up, the exabyte disk, and the fatal exception. This is when Mia walks in and decides to be the only adult in the room: “I can see you all whispering in here. Piper and I talked. Nothing is different. So you guys have to get your heads straight starting now. Got it?” Dear Mia, you rule!

These scenes constitute probably the best starting four minutes among all episodes of Emergence so far.

Chris, the most mentioned deputy in the Christmas-wish list of all sheriffs in the land, finds anecdotal references on Reddit about a cyber-terrorist group called Splinter whose description fit the shady dudes encountered by Jo and Emily in “American Chestnut.” Benny brushes it aside, saying that they sound like “some sort of an urban legend” to him (an off-hand remark at the time, significant in retrospect).

Ed has a meeting with someone recommended to him by his doctor about some type of gene-therapy trial to help him fight cancer. There is one problem. That ‘someone’ is Helen, the then-unnamed assassin of Alan! They meet at the hospital and, boy, does her pitch to Ed sound good! His chances of outcome after five years increase to 96% compared to 48% with chemotherapy and there are no side effects. It’s basically a cure that sounds too good to be true, as Ed rightfully suspects. In return, Helen wants Piper handed over to ‘them,’ a deal to which she refers as “a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

We only learn of her offer after Ed arrives home later, visibly flustered, and informs Jo and Alex of the meeting. It’s a neat trick by the writers to keep viewers in suspense about Ed’s response to the “arrangement” through a commercial break, and some.

The same method is utilized once more when Alex reaches out later to Helen to meet, only for viewers to realize later that he was merely executing a scheme set up by Jo to “hook, line, and sink” Helen – although, I must admit to being far less fooled by this false trail than the previous one. We are meant to consider the possibility that Alex could be naïve or protective of Mia, thus weighing the option to turn Piper over to Helen against everyone’s wishes. The problem here is that this behavior is too out of character for Alex to be plausible. Furthermore, the way he phones Helen, moving anxiously into an isolated room while looking behind him, appears too dramatic to throw the viewers off in any meaningful way. It makes even less sense once it is indeed confirmed that he was collaborating with Jo and Ed. Why would they not be present when one of the most crucial steps of their plan, Alex calling Helen to set up a meeting, is being put into action?

The more interesting part of the sequence is what Helen says to Alex and how she says it, when they do eventually meet. It’s hard to unequivocally conclude that she intends to harm Piper. In fact, she appears rather protective of the girl and wants her safe “where she belongs.” “With us,” she adds, where she is “surrounded by people more equipped to handle her specific needs.” According to her, Piper “is one of a kind and needs to be treated as such.”

She also denies any connection to Augur Industries and the eldritch neighborhood in which Piper was kept. The cliffhanger at the end of the episode reinforces the ambiguity about Helen and her peers being the “bad guys.” As I noted above, I have yet to shove Helen and Benny into the ‘enemy’ category and I appreciate that writer Kendra Chanae Chapman seems to have consciously foregrounded that uncertainty – side note: if she is reading this by any chance and laughing at how far off my assumption is, please don’t tell me!!

Agent Brooks pays an unexpected visit to Benny, leading to an unpleasant conversation between the two. Brooks read Benny’s article about Jo adopting a little girl and wants to know more. With alarm bells ringing in his head, Benny curtly refuses to indulge him. It’s the first time since his introduction in “American Chestnut” that Agent Brooks engages in irksome behavior.

Later, he visits Emily at the hospital and it does not take long before she spills out to him some juicy details about Piper. Next, Jo is called into his office at the FBI, which brings us to the outing’s most intriguing scene. Jo brings Brooks up to date on just about everything, except that Piper is an AI. She even lets him in on her plans to capture Helen via the scheme she concocted with Alex earlier, and invites Brooks to join them, under the condition that once Helen is captured, Brooks and the FBI will leave Piper alone.

The scene also showcases our chief’s high-IQ and shrewd preparation skills in terms of doing her homework before walking into a possibly hostile milieu adroitly represented by the FBI building. McGuigan’s camera work puts the emphasis on how intimidating everything at the lobby appears to her, how uncomfortable she is with the idea of giving up her gun at the checkpoint and not being in control, unlike at the Southold PD. By the time she arrives to the isolated room and notices Brooks waiting for her with a recorder in his hand, there is no doubt left as to who holds the home-court advantage. Hint: It ain’t Jo.

Relying on his belief that he has Jo backed against the wall thanks to the information obtained from Emily earlier, Brooks takes a menacing tone from the outset. When Jo hesitates to answer, he reminds her that she could possibly face five years in jail for lying to a federal officer. Yet, by the end of this fascinating tête-à-tête, Jo somehow finds a way to gain the upper hand over Brooks and bend him to her will because – kids, repeat after me – she has meticulously done her homework. Agent Brooks and the FBI are in dire need of results and Jo is the one with the necessary information to achieve them. Brooks has little choice left but to join Jo’s team for the evening. Who am I kidding? Of course, he is in! He could not even believe that Splinter got in touch with Jo, let alone dream of capturing one of them, after they eluded him and the FBI for 15 years.

In yet another another touching dialogue between Ed and Piper at the house, the latter wonders if she can find a way to help Ed as she lays her head on his shoulder. “I’ll start thinking right away,” she adds, to which he replies with a smile, “okay.” I recommend having some Kleenex nearby, even if it’s your second time watching this scene, or third, or fourth.

Jo, Brooks, and Chris watch Alex from afar as he drives to the dock on a rainy evening to meet Helen. McGuigan brings in a neat set of tricks with the camera splits to move things along at a swift pace. For reasons too long to list here, the meeting falls apart and Helen drives away in a hurry. Our protagonists pursue her and eventually corner her car on a bridge, but Helen jumps off the bridge on foot and escapes! At first, I questioned why none of them considered shooting in the leg to stop her run, but then I reconsidered when I put myself in their place. Who would believe that a human being (wink) would consider jumping off that bridge on a night like that and expect to survive? It’s likely that they were momentarily thrown off by her crazy endeavor and therefore could not react with alacrity. In any case, Jo immediately calls home and instructs Benny to take Mia, Ed, and Piper to the precinct!

Once at the station, Jo is told that Benny dropped Mia and Ed and took off with Piper, claiming that Jo instructed him to bring Piper to her. It’s a lie of course, Jo did no such thing. The shocking betrayal by Benny begins to dawn on Chief Evans in yet another well-directed sequence (I am not exaggerating, McGuigan should be nominated for some kind of award for this episode, but I am certain it will go unnoticed by the so-called experts) during which the score and the panning camera shots amplify the steadily increasing malaise felt by everyone as they learn that Benny’s phone is disconnected and that he checked out of the hotel hours ago. He basically fooled everyone for weeks and kidnapped Piper.

We are not yet done with twists though. He drives Piper to an abandoned gas station where he said that they would meet Jo, except that, much to Piper’s dismay, they meet Helen instead. Piper is genuinely alarmed when Benny hastily slaps a wristband on her, designed to prevent her from using her powers.

In a stunning closing scene, Helen and Benny attempt to reassure Piper that she is not in danger and that she is better off with them because Jo, although “she has been very very good” to Piper, “would never understand” her. Benny extends his hand to Piper as both he and Helen start glowing with light patterns coursing through their bodies before the curtain closes on the winter finale.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Does this mean that AIs are unable to recognize each other since Piper showed no awareness of Benny’s true nature until now, or was it simply because Piper has not yet mastered her skills? She did, after all, successfully resist Emily’s virtual library and survive the fatal exception, did she not?

– Splinter is not exactly a beacon of smart planning. Helen’s attempt to convince Ed to give up Piper was not exactly brilliant to begin with, and then, her agreeing to meet Alex later for the Piper exchange by the docks and not account for the possibility of police presence is even more confounding. Along the same lines, didn’t Benny already have many chances to kidnap Piper anyway, if that were his (or Splinter’s) objective all along?

– I love how Alex approaches Jo in the living room as if he has something to say, only to end up listening as she engages in a monologue while he quietly alternates between half-smiles and raised eyebrows, until he leaves without uttering a word.

– I also love how Abby cannot hold back her glaring smile when Ed brings up the idea of clinical trials. She smiles, smiles, and smiles more, as he keeps talking. It was so contagious that I found myself smiling throughout that scene.

– I wondered early in the episode, when Benny first appeared at the precinct, why his head was not bandaged or even swollen after the wrench blow by Alan in “American Chestnut.” Now, it makes sense. Most humans would have probably suffered a nasty head trauma, needed stitches, or even possibly go into a coma following that full-force strike to the back of the cranial unit.

– The line and delivery of the hour: “I am a master at espionaaaage.” Signed: Alex.

Until the next episode…

PS1: You can find the links to all my episode reviews by clicking on “All Reviews” at the top.
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“American Chestnut” aired on November 26, 2019
Written by: Lindsey Allen
Directed by: Jessica Lowrey
Grade: 3 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

The outing begins with a rather ordinary scene with Emily talking to an artificial intelligence in the form of a crystal cube. It’s an effort on her part to create something resembling Piper, but when she attempts to install a disk to finalize the work, the program fails. The sequence is geared to emphasize, I presume, Emily’s obsessiveness with creating an AI who loves her (the cube refers to her as “mother”). Nothing new here, this is an obvious trait of Emily that did not need extra exposure. It’s not even part of any of the three storylines of focus during “American Chestnut.”

Back at the house, it’s Mia’s 15^th birthday and the family is in a festive mood, except for Piper who is perturbed and asking questions about herself to Jo, not that Jo’s fleeting answers provide any relief. We already know that Piper is suspicious about Jo hiding something from her and that Jo fears telling Piper the whole truth due to the fatal-exception ‘clause.’ The dialogue’s tone – helped by well-grounded performances by Allison Tolman and Alexa Swinton – serves to foreground those uncertainties. Piper’s quest to discover herself is one of the episode’s two A stories.  

The second A story includes an FBI agent named Ryan Brooks (Enver Gjokaj). Hallelujah folks! It took 8 episodes, but the show is finally (and explicitly) acknowledging that there is indeed someone other than the Southold PD and Benny interested in this case featuring a plane crash, murders, and an international muckamuck like Richard Kindred helming a multi-billion-dollar entity called Augur Industries. In an alternate reality outside the land of TV drama, such case would attract the attention of federal bureaus, national and international security agencies, and worldwide interest by media outlets (resulting in journalists invading Southold). In that alternate dimension, Jo and Chris would be swarmed with demands from various agencies and whatnots, have no time to spend calm evenings with the family, hold birthday parties, or have the luxury to schedule their day around Piper’s needs. The only glimmer of hint we had of this ‘normal’ dimension was the newsflash on a TV screen in “Mile Marker 14” briefly showing Kindred getting arrested. So yes, the entrance of an FBI agent as a recurring character is a much-needed injection into the narrative. As a bonus, Agent Brooks is a lively chap too!

He is in Southold to investigate Kindred’s murder. He is keen on sharing notes with Jo, knowing that her investigation ultimately led to Kindred’s arrest. He comes across personable and positive. He is not bad looking either, at least according to Abby! Jo is not as gung-ho as he is, however, about sharing knowledge with him. She and Chris agree that they should take advantage of the FBI’s resources to find Emily before they do. I am not sold on the reason for which Jo and her helpers decide to take the hard-ass approach (even Daphne at the precinct gives him the icy treatment) toward Brooks who appears to be one of the friendliest FBI agents portrayed on TV shows, but I am willing to wait and see if her instincts prove her right. Our clever Chief has earned that right.

Brooks, Jo, and Chris meet at the site of the building that Emily blew up – or so believes Jo. This is the Augur Ind. facility where Jo and Benny had to wrestle with robot dogs back in “2 MG CU BID.” Jo concludes that Emily is eliminating all traces leading to her, thus the murder of Kindred. It’s the third Augur Industries building to be destroyed during the week. This is where Brooks brings up something that sounds almost as if the show is aware of its under-populated arena of federal agencies around the case noted above. According to him, the FBI has put incredible amount of resources into investigating Augur Industries and Brooks himself has been pursuing Kindred for three years. Again, it would have added a layer of realism if we saw some of that in previous episodes while Kindred was at the center of the investigation. Brooks is here to fill that void from this point forward, I reckon. He is also aware of Emily Cox and that she is Kindred’s daughter.

In the B storyline of the episode, Alan is staying with Benny in his hotel room because Jo believes it’s the best way to keep Alan safe as long as Emily is on the loose. One problem, Alan is driving Benny crazy with his quirky habits. Jo arrives and asks Alan to eliminate Piper’s fatal exception, but he is not at all inclined to so. He knows that Piper can now rewrite her own code and sees the 10-year-old as a danger that needs to be destroyed. Plus, Emily is the one who designed the fatal exception so he would not know how to remove it anyway.

Later, Jo tells Benny to move Alan to another location since the FBI are also looking for him. During their trip, a tire goes flat, causing them to stop while they change it. Alan takes the opportunity to warn Benny about Piper, drawing a far-fetched parallel between how Japanese chestnut trees carrying a fungus that destroyed American chestnut trees and took over the American landscape, and how Piper’s AI could take over the planet – the nerd in me forced me to look this up, and yes, it did indeed happen in the early part of the 20th century. Alan then proceeds to slam the back of Benny’s head with the wheel wrench while his back is turned and escapes.

Back at the house, Alex and Piper are enjoying some quality bonding time. Piper opens up to Alex about her concerns with regard to her nature and the fact that Jo is hiding something from her. She fears that she is not safe to be around. Alex, who takes over the ‘mensch’ title from Chris at least for this outing, is reassuring and kind with her. The interactions between these two make this storyline the best of the hour.

Piper notices the map showing the location of the abandoned village to which Benny and Jo paid a visit in “No Outlet” and wants to go there (hats off to the writing room for the timely and substantial tie-ins to previous episodes). Once arrived, Piper and Alex enter the house in which she was kept. She immediately remembers that she ran away from the house when she sees the hole on the wall. She adds that she was alone and scared for a long time. I would be curious to know how long is “a long time” and if this period will be explored further in a future episode. Where was she and what was she doing during the time starting with her escape from the house to when Jo found her at the site of the plane crush? How long was she alone? One day? One week? Five months?

Agent Brooks locates Emily’s mom Vanessa Cox (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson) and invites her to the precinct for a chat. Vanessa brought some old family pictures and one of them, dated June 1988, is a picture of Vanessa with her ten-year-old daughter Emily who looks identical to Piper! This is a twist that could potentially open up a can of worms. Does that mean that Emily is an AI herself? Or did Emily create Piper in her own image? More on this later.

The always-useful Chris traces an incoming call to Vanessa’s number to an Augur Industries facility. Jo drives there and lo and behold, she finds Emily inside the building. Easy peasy. You would think that Emily would be more scrupulous about having her whereabouts discovered but it’s on par for the course considering Emily’s strained relationship with the concept of meticulous planning. To Jo’s surprise, Emily denies blowing up buildings. Right then, some dudes dressed in combat gear enter the facility and begin to set up explosives. Jo and Emily make a run for the exit, and in doing so, they run into Brooks who quickly joins them. They escape in the nick of time as the building crumbles down from explosions.

Jo apologizes to Brooks later for not communicating with him when she discovered Emily’s location. Brooks is unfazed and states that he will be looking forward to hearing what Emily has to say since she is now in federal custody. Hey, the guy has taken a lot of grief from everyone employed by the Southold PD for no reason, so I don’t blame him for being curt just for once.

An endearing conversation takes place between Alex and Piper upon their return home. Alex, in his usual soothing tone, tells her that if Jo is hiding something from her, its’ probably because she has Piper’s best interest in mind. And when Piper expresses dismay about the abandoned house being her home, he gently – and firmly – replies, “that’s not your home. This is your home,” which draws a smile out of Piper. Let’s be honest, can anyone think of a more supportive bunch than Jo, Mia, Ed, and Alex with whom a young, lonesome outcast like Piper could surround herself? I think not!

After Mia’s birthday party comes to an end at the house, the family is terrified to find Piper in the garden with lights glowing on her arms. Apparently, Emily sent a gift package to her signed, “To Piper, from Mom” and Piper placed the disk inside the package on her wrist. Light patterns spread all over her body, including her eyes. Once the glowing ends and Piper wakes up from her trance state, she tells Jo that the disk told her who she was and that she is feeling okay. She appears to have survived the fatal exception, not withstanding the quasi-heart-attack experience the family members just went through watching her!

Last scene shows Alan checking into a remote hotel room. He is horror-struck to find a woman waiting for him inside. She is seemingly connected to the group setting the explosives in the buildings because there is a mask on the bed similar to the ones worn by the shoddy dudes from earlier. She accuses Alan of taking what did not belong to him. As he tries to explain in panic mode that he will “get it back,” she sticks a blade in his throat. With Kindred killed in the last episode, Wilkis in this one, and facilities blowing up all over the map, fall of 2019 is far from going down in history as the brightest chapter for Augur Industries.

“American Chestnut” feels like your conventional transitionary episode. The 11th-hour introduction of the killer woman and the rogue group to which she belongs present a fresh set of questions at a time when Emergence could use some. With Kindred and Wilkis gone, and Emily in custody, the show seems to temporarily lack a potent antagonist, a void that could be filled by these characters. Also introduced is Agent Brooks whose role seems uncertain for the moment other than legitimizing the existence of some federal authority in the Emergence universe. Better late than never in this particular case!

The most interesting development, for my part, was Emily’s ten-year-old self being identical to Piper. If the conversation between Jo and Emily is any indication, this will be brushed off as the manifestation of Emily’s desire to create Piper in her own image in order to offer her the childhood that she never had herself. It is not that the idea is not intrinsically creative (it is). I just cannot help but think that, if handled differently, it could turn into a dynamic plot leading to a plethora of long-term ramifications.

Last-minute thoughts:

– The way Chris and Jo were acting uptight around Agent Brooks at the precinct was over the top. Surely, Brooks could tell that they were keeping information from him, could he not?

– When Jo arrests Emily at the building and asks her to get rid of Piper’s fatal exception, Emily delivers the most sarcastic line of the hour: “Are you asking me for a favor while arresting me?”

– Next episode: First-season winter finale!

PS1: You can find the links to all my episode reviews by clicking on “All Reviews” at the top.
PS2: Follow Durg on Twitter and Facebook

“Fatal Exception” aired on November 19, 2019
Written by: Holly Brix
Directed by: Christopher Misiano
Grade: 3,5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

I have stated more than once in my past reviews that one of Emergence’s strongest assets, if not the strongest, has been its fascinating play on the ambiguity surrounding Piper’s nature, or more precisely, whether she has a sinister side to her character or not. Showrunners Tara Butters & Michele Fazekas, along with the episode writers, have done a great job of foregrounding that ambiguity throughout the first four episodes before shifting some of the attention to the villainous duo of Kindred-Emily in the next two.

Then, came “Mile Marker 14” with a remarkable 15-second conclusion that contained a stunning twist and the return to spotlight of Piper’s ambivalent disposition, the former via the revelation that Emily, not Kindred, was scheming to gain control of Piper, the latter via Piper’s smile back at Emily as the episode ends when she hears Emily say, “Now, we get to have fun.”

“Fatal Exception” gets only half of it right in terms of capitalizing on those closing 15 seconds of “Mile Marker 14,” arguably the best one of the season (along with that of “Pilot” with Piper in front of the mirror). This hour solely focuses on the ramifications of the twist, Emily becoming the principal antagonist, and completely ignores Piper’s meaningful smile which is, ironically, a more fitting play on the show’s long-arc strength.

Consider, for example, the endings of “Pilot” and “2 MG CU BID” (episodes one and three), both underlining the ambivalence noted above regarding Piper’s nature. The succeeding episodes two and four beautifully milked that ambivalence by including multiple scenes in which Piper displayed questionable behaviors, thus keeping the viewer in doubt. Maybe I should therefore unfairly blame Emergence for setting a high standard on that particularity, but I felt a bit let down by “Fatal Exception” when it chose to deviate from that pattern by plowing forward as if Piper’s smile never happened.

Not only does she not appear joyful when the episode picks up from where the last one ended, but she is actually sulking, as Emily accompanies her on a walk around the virtual amusement park. It does not take long before Piper gets annoyed, turns defiant, and asks to leave, much to Emily’s dismay. Perhaps for the first time in the series, there is no trace of the aforementioned ambiguity throughout the hour. “Fatal Exception” essentially portrays Piper as an innocent victim of circumstances. She is an AI, but a ‘good’ AI.

What is Emily to do, for her part, when her amusement-park scheme designed to get on Piper’s good graces falls apart? Her problem is that she lacks the sangfroid (par for the course with her barmy temperament from previous episodes) to concoct well-calculated schemes on a consistent basis. Some are noteworthy, such as the way that she manipulated everyone into believing that Kindred was the malefactor while she surreptitiously sought to possess Piper. Others are awful, such as the ones that she tries to execute in this episode. Let me jump ahead to a later scene to illustrate. What in the world was she thinking, for example, when she showed up at Jo’s house to take Piper away? Was she simply expecting Piper to use her powers to hurt members of Jo’s family if any of them tried to stop them? Amazingly, yes! She was! Wow, Emily!  

Anyway, back to earlier…

Emily is now holding Alan Wilkis hostage and threatening to have his wife killed (the hitman is at her house) unless he somehow fixes Piper using Emily’s back-up drive. She is obsessed with being loved by Piper and intends to have her mind recalibrated in such a way that she replaces Jo in Piper’s memories, effectively supplanting Jo as the mother figure.

Back at the precinct, Piper mentions that Emily likes cotton candy which piques Jo’s curiosity and triggers her into reviewing recent events, leading to the realization, with a bit of assistance from Chris and Piper, that Emily played them all along. And I mean, Jo does that in record time! Here we are, no more than 12 minutes into the episode, already into a full-scale pursuit of Emily by the Southold PD.

Jo pays a visit to Kindred in prison. She did some digging and learned that Kindred bought properties on behalf of Emily’s mother whom, she deduces, Kindred impregnated while he was married. Emily is indeed Kindred’s daughter. The last thing he needed as a public figure was a scandal, so that was his way of convincing Emily’s mother to keep it under the covers while raising Emily. No wonder why he was also protecting Emily, Jo figures, because he did not call her out despite the fact that she is the reason why he is jailed.

Under pressure by Emily, Alan sets up some type of a reboot system neatly represented on screen by a virtual library where all books are blue, but begin to turn red one by one as each one of Piper’s memories with Jo gets altered to where she is replaced by Emily, until the library ends up with only red books. It seems to work for Emily, except that, as noted above, her plan rests on precarious assumptions, notably the one where she counts on Piper to abruptly turn against Jo and her family members to the point of hurting them if they try to stop the two of them from leaving from the house.

Earlier, Jo had sent Chris to knock on Maria’s door (Wilkis’s widow) because she has yet to return her calls. Maria’s behavior when she answers the door is peculiar enough to indicate to Chris that something is amiss and that she may be in danger. Chris, the champion of all deputies, enters through a window and saves Maria after a scuffle with the gunman who escapes.

Once Maria is brought to the precinct, Jo figures out the whereabouts of Alan and Emily via the most contrived epiphany possible. According to Jo, you see, Maria thought she heard a train on the phone when Emily called her, but it was actually a ferry. You betcha-by-golly-wow that Jo can also pinpoint the precise location, on the Long Island state map no less, from which a passing-by ferry can be heard. That is naturally where Emily and Alan are.

They arrive to the property, capture the hitman, and save Alan. Emily is still on the loose, having left the house earlier. Alan proposes to Jo that he resets Piper up to the hilt since Emily now controls her. His idea makes sense, but Jo disagrees because that would also mean erasing the memories that Piper built with her and the family since the night of the airplane crash. Alan is baffled by Jo’s attachment to what he considers to be no more than a computer program in humanoid form and proceeds to reset Piper anyway, but Jo destroys the computer before he can do so. I must confess that I found my rational side agreeing with Alan throughout this dialogue, although my emotional side cheered for Jo.

In the meantime, Mia is genuinely upset at being separated from Piper and she is relentlessly using the guilt-trip tactics on her dad in hopes of changing his mind. It is only when she tells the real story behind how Piper saved her and Ed by stopping the big truck from hitting them in “RDZ9021” that Alex is convinced enough to drive Mia to the house so that the two girls can reunite.

At the house, Emily has already set the wheels of her brilliant (!!) plan in motion. As she is leaving the house with Piper, Benny and Ed try to stop them, as expected. Emily smiles and prompts Piper to defend her. Piper sends Benny flying across the room, but her malaise in doing so is quite visible. So, you can imagine what happens when Alex and Mia show up as the two are leaving the house. Piper, already on tenterhooks from having hurt Benny, is not about to follow Emily’s command when it puts two of her most cherished friends in danger. It appears that Jo was right in derailing Alan’s plan to reboot Piper earlier, although she probably did not foresee this specific scenario involving Emily’s shaky plan to kidnap Piper.

This is when Piper, who has evidently evolved, suddenly begins to uncalibrate herself, so to speak, Emily and Alan’s recent modifications to her memories, essentially reverting to how they were before Jo was replaced by Emily. She does so by revisiting the virtual library and bringing back the blue books. Emily, devastated by the turn of events, escapes in her vehicle. A pat outcome to a rickety plan.

An 11th-hour shocker ends the episode when Kindred gets killed – liquefied, rather – by a prison guard while talking on the phone to a crestfallen Emily whose only wish was for Piper to love her. He attempts to reassure her that he will “clean up the mess” once he gets out of prison. Emily replies with disdain, “I don’t need you to clean up my messes anymore. I can do that by myself,” and she hangs up. Out of nowhere, the prison guard approaches Kindred from behind and kills him to end the outing. Gone is Richard Kindred – and Terry O’Quinn. It’s one of those unusual moments where the elimination of a central character is shocking not necessarily because we expected Kindred to stick around for a long time, but rather because we believed the character would stick around a long time in consideration of the actor playing the role. O’Quinn is a bonafide asset for any paranormal-mystery series, thus I find it puzzling that Kindred is written off halfway into the first season. I have zero expectations of the character being resurrected somehow either (nor should he be), since he was literally liquefied.

Overall, as the pay-off episode to the ending twist of the previous one, “Fatal Exception” falls short of expectations. I believed, wrongly, that the writing room was crafting a longer arc over the ending twist of “Mile Marker 14” during which Emily’s deception would wreak more havoc on our protagonists before they finally realize how duplicitous she is. Instead, her true nature is revealed to them within the first act, her plan falls apart within the hour, and a major character is written off by the end. I am curious, and a bit apprehensive, I must add, about how the writing room will juggle the balance between the long arc and the turnover rate of short-term storylines in the upcoming episodes.

 Last-minute thoughts:

– Daphne (played by Evangeline Young who was terrific in the little-known series Law of Perdition) is now a recurring character as Jo’s helper in the Southold PD. It remains to be seen whether she will be limited to the ubiquitous precinct-filler role with humorous one-liners (see any TV procedural for examples) or given more depth in order to help viewers connect with her further.

– Ed is super passive-aggressive with Jo back at the house, still seething from finding out that she kept secrets from them. It’s a rich scene between father and daughter, one during which I could not dismiss out of hand either of their arguments.

– Personal opinion: As things stand at the end of “Fatal Exception,” a plotline centering on Emily as the main villain cannot carry the rest of the season. The episode comes across as if it was trying to show by the end that she outlasted her usefulness anyway. I am not saying she should be written off (although, no objections there), but perhaps gradually moved into the background. I’d rather watch our heroes grapple with a new challenge centering on Piper.

– Tamara Tunie of Law & Order: Special Victims unit makes another appearance as Maria. Yes, I am a fan of that show and Tunie!

Until the next episode…

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