“Full Upright and Locked Position” – Aired on November 4, 2022
Writers: Matt K. Turner & Jimmy Blackmon
Director: Erica Watson
Grade: 2.5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
Note: This review was published little less than two years after the episode aired, but written without any knowledge of the events taking place in future episodes.
If I can comfortably refer to the previous episode, “Romeo,” as the zenith of season 4 so far, I must be fair and refer to “Full Upright and Locked Position” as the season’s nadir. It appears that almost every aspect (reserved pacing, meaningful dialogues, no common-sense-challenging contrivances, etc.) of “Romeo” that made it season 4’s best entry so far, has been chucked in the attic and forgotten in producing this one.
“Full Upright and Locked Position” feels like a 100-meter sprint to move multiple plots from point A to Z, with only an aloof concern for the plausibility of what takes place between B and Y. It doesn’t help either that the poor judgment shown by familiar characters throughout the episode cumulatively ends up requiring too much suspension of disbelief.
The outing begins with the 828 Registry forces arriving at the Stone residence and apprehending Cal before he can “run” like Jared had urgently suggested at the end of “Romeo.” Remember that Cal was the last person seen with Violet before she was murdered. Once at the Registry, Captain Fahey (Perry Strong), newly sent from DC to take command of the Registry, attempts to calm Ben down by saying that ‘Gabriel’ will be questioned and released provided that he he has done nothing wrong. Ben’s central worry is, of course, that Cal will have his fingers printed and blood taken for DNA, resulting in the discovery of his true identity by the authorities.
In his motel room, Eagan has a calling showing the inside of a warehouse, and he hears Adrian calling for help. He rushes over to Adrian’s room where he runs into Michaela and Zeke who had arrived moments before, thanks to Drea having located Adrian earlier from a credit card ping. Adrian is missing however, and the evidence points to an abduction. Eagan tells them about his calling, and pleads with Michaela to let him join them to help find Adrian. Honesty check by Zeke, and off goes Eagan the scuzzball with our duo despite Michaela’s reluctance. Sorry, but I had all kinds of problems with this particular conversation, and Eagan’s otherwise funny use of metaphors and nicknames did nothing to salvage the high degree of idiocy manifested by Michaela and Zeke. Why would, first of all, Michaela tell Eagan about Noelle? How about simply warning him that the murderer is after those who hosted Angelina and Eden? And Zeke’s constant double-checking of Eagan’s honesty with his Betazoid-ish mind reading powers (that popped out of nowhere last season for plot-convenience purposes and makes no sense to this day) comes across trite and artificial. As if that were not enough, Michaela agrees to have Eagan stay over at the house. Can I get a wut? After all the damage the lying scuzzball has inflicted on people Michaela cares about, why would she even consider having Eagan stay with her family under the same roof? Because… the plot must advance?
Back at the Registry, Drea manages to buy Ben a couple of hours by erasing Cal’s fingerprint file. His blood will soon be drawn and taken to a lab though, so Ben find a way to get Cal out of the Registry before his true identity comes out. Drea digs around for information on Noelle in the meantime and learns that her family runs a debris business using multiple construction sites. Jared and Michaela head to its headquarters where they learn that Noelle sold the business a while back. A friendly worker (Mario Polit) lets them check the project files stacked in the back room. They find a warehouse in the files that was intentionally taken off the active-job list after the business was transferred. Noelle must have done that on purpose in order to operate from a location that doesn’t show up in any records. Michaela and Jared are headed there next, with Vance on his way.
We finally catch up with Noelle who pretends taking Angelina to a “safe place,” which is in fact the warehouse where she also has Adrian tied up to a chair. She plans to execute him in front of Angelina so that her daughter can watch him “cleansed from the world like the others.” Angelina wants no part of this, but it’s too late as Noelle neutralizes her with chloroform and ties her to a chair next to Adrian. Everything in this story line seems far-fetched and silly. Writers attempt to portray Noelle in the most despicable manner, but they overcook it so badly that it only serves to turn her into a caricaturized version of a cardboard villain. To start with, why place Angelina and Adrian next to each other in the vast warehouse while she is absent? Why not place them far apart, or even in separate halls, and bring them together only when the execution takes place? And why is she so obsessed with Angelina seeing Adrian die when she showed no hesitation in killing Anna, Violet, and Sam without Angelina present? Because… the plot must advance?
Disclaimer: For the sake of sanity, I am bypassing the warehouse scenes in this review until the climactic encounter there at the end.
The only story line of “Full Upright and Locked Position” that truly works is the reunion of Saanvi and Dr. Gupta. Saanvi updates Gupta on the detainees being stuck in a constant state of calling, and wants her to help her “safely” replicate the Major’s protocols. Gupta is reluctant at first, already feeling guilty about what happened to them, but agrees to share the Major’s files that she had copied on a USB key – she had the key ready in her hand, but the scene would like us to believe that she arrived at Bird Nest with no idea of what Saanvi was planning to talk to her about. Oh-kay…
As expected, the Major used sapphire to generate the callings. What is unusual though, Saanvi notes, is that she needed a special kind of sapphire to accomplish the desired results. She calls Olive to help with the research on the type of sapphire – Olive answers the phone to cut short, thankfully, an annoying scene with her, Eagan, and Zeke having breakfast together at the house. It’s almost as if the episode is mocking itself when Saanvi asks Olive, “Wait. You’re with Eagan?” The scuzzball also gets to see Vance’s operation center. Never mind that he ruined Vance’s family.
Marko was the first subject that produced results and Saanvi realizes that the Major intentionally increased the charges. “The more pain, the clearer the calling,” confirms Gupta. Saanvi believes – wants to believe – that she can replicate the process without causing pain to the passengers. Knowing that Eagan had a recent calling about Adrian, Saanvi chooses to test her theory with the scuzzball as subject.
Back at the Registry, Ben hears a calling — via the microwave in the precinct, I kid you not — in the form of musical notes that are similar to the ones that united him and Radd back in the season 1’s “Reentry.” Believing that the calling meant to help Cal, he rushes to Radd’s place. Through some music-composition talk involving numbers, and Radd playing the piano, they eventually come up with a phone number. Ben dials the number and Alex picks up the phone. The musical-note calling meant for Ben to learn about Cal’s cancer coming back. This also means that Alex can present herself as Cal’s doctor at the Registry and demand that he be turned over to her care. It works! The Registry is forced to release Cal just in the nick of time, before he gets his blood drawn.
Back at the Bird’s Nest, Saanvi connects Eagan to the fMRI machine, thinking that his photographic memory will allow them to get clearer results with less charging power. As he is getting prepped for the machine, Eagan notices drawings on the table that resemble the columns he saw at the entrance a food center for the homeless back when he was following his first calling, “help him,” (seen as a flashback). Things don’t go as Saanvi hoped during the experiment. Eagan begins to wildly shake, and she is forced to abort the charges with no results.
Olive uses her usual mythological-research dexterity to come across a “supercharged” type of sapphire named “Omega Sapphire,” supposedly mined from the same ancient quarry by various historical figures. There are seven of them in the world, but only one remain, located in Mount Ararat (now called “Agri dagi”). Saanvi is devastated to hear this, because it means that the fragment from Noah’s Ark that they had at Eureka — the one that she tossed into the fissure back in “Compass Calibration” — was imbued with Omega sapphire! Side note: Saanvi joins the parade of idiocy by sharing with Eagan the information related to Omega Sapphire. It’s almost as if, for one episode, Eagan cast a spell on every smart character in the show.
Michaela, Vance, and Jared enter the warehouse and prevent Noelle from killing Adrian in a ham-fisted sequence that is meant to keep the viewer on the edge, but had zero impact on me. It was so obvious that Noelle’s absurd religious routine before killing Adrian would give our heroes enough time to reach her. The relevant part here is that Angelina is missing, because she had escaped earlier without untying Adrian because, as far as she is concerned, he deserved whatever her mother had in store for him.
Speaking of turn of events, Drea informs Michaela that she found footage of Noelle driving during the time of Violet’s murder, meaning that there is still a killer out there. Guess what? The killer is outside the Stones residence because, lo and behold, Zeke feels his presence! Olive lets an officer inside the house for help without knowing that it’s Noelle’s husband Kenneth posing as a cop! He intends to kill Eden to prove to Angelina that she is no angel. A couple of brief scuffles result in Zeke getting shot in the leg and Olive pushing Kenneth out the window to his death!
The best scene of the episode comes toward the end when Olive, missing TJ deeply, leaves a voice message on his phone, desperate to hear his voice. Right then, she gets a text from him, telling her to come outside. Yep, he is back from overseas and stepping out of a cab with his luggage! Garrett Wareing and Luna Blaise knock it out of the park in this great scene of reunited lovers. TJ also hints at having some information on the possibility of finding some Omega Sapphire in New York.
The closing scene involves Eagan arriving back at the center where his first ever calling (“help him”) led him. This time he goes in the building and offers to volunteer in the soup kitchen, not because he wants to help someone, but because he believes it may have a connection to Omega Sapphire. You see, not only do the two columns at the entrance look exactly like the drawings he noticed on Saanvi’s charts, but it also says in big letters on the top of the building, “Masonic Temple of The Omega Order.”
Last-minute thoughts:
— Last TJ appearance was in season 2’s “Call Sign.” He has grown a beard since.
— In the closing sequence, we briefly see Zeke confess his relapse to Michaela who responds by hugging him. Sweet!
— I believe this is the first time we had a flashback within a flashback when Eagan recalls his conversation in jail with Logan whom we had seen in season 2’s “Black Box.” We also learn that Eagan had his own wall of 828 Flight clues in the cell, similar to the one Ben had his in his Mulder-like home-office.
— Curtiss Cook reprises his role as Radd. He’s had the quite the upgrade as an actor since his first-season appearance. He is starring on Paramount+ as a regular cast member of The Chi.
— Captain Fahey is sending a request to NYPD for Jared to be transferred to the Registry. “The Registry could use another good detective,” he says. Surely, Jared will not refuse working alongside with his girlfriend, will he?
Until the next episode…
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