“Grounded” – Aired on January 13, 2020
Written by: Laura Putney & Margaret Easley
Directed by: Claudia Yarmy
Grade: 4,5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
“Grounded” is what I would call, a ‘crescendo’ episode. A formidable one! It is an apt primer for what is to come. It builds, gaslights, intensifies, and ignites, but defers the joy or anguish of pay-offs to future episodes. While one conundrum gets solved, others are slowly turning into calamities, portending unbearable levels of hardship to come for our protagonists.
As an example of what I mean by ‘crescendo episode,’ take Cal and Michaela’s airplane visions involving Zeke. Remember how Cal insisted in the 2nd-season opener “Fasten Your Seatbelts” that he and Michaela needed to be together, except that Zeke ended up in prison by the end of the episode. “Grounded” advances that plot by further intensifying the vision, but stops short of offering any explanation. We notice, for example, a fire spreading in the plane. Zeke’s vision in the isolation cell at the very end is even more chaotic, threatening his life. All three characters have a stake in urgently solving this vision, but they, along with the viewers, will have to wait until another episode. Similar patterns are adopted in the Saanvi and Olive storylines (see below), and it’s all done without stalling the narrative or taking attention away from the overall arc. Nice work!
Credit should definitely go to episode writers Laura Putney and Margaret Easley (who also collaborated for season 1’s “Dead Reckoning” and “Cleared for Approach“) for carefully crafting an hour of primetime TV drama driven by a series of poignant developments in preparation for potent pay-offs in the future. “Grounded” succeeds by gripping the viewer from the opening scene to the closing one by adding cogent layers to carry-over plots, and meaningful character-growth moments featuring delightful performances by guest and recurring actors.
It showcases one main character arriving at a crossroads in life, another one getting repeatedly scolded by anyone and everyone, a third one hitting rock bottom, and a fourth who ‘thinks’ she is having a good day while unknowingly setting herself – and her trusted ones – up for a disastrous downfall.
The hour begins with a flashback scene of Michaela watching Director Vance being put in an ambulance after the explosion in “Dead Reckoning.” The paramedic who pulled Vance out of the rubble was apparently one of his trusted men. The Director refused to go to the hospital because he had other plans. He reckons that his chances of identifying “the people inside the government” who tried kill him increase if they are duped into believing that they succeeded.
Since that day, Vance set up a rogue office under the disguise of a travel agency from where he is trying to unriddle the question marks surrounding the mystery of Flight 828. He clues Ben and Michaela in on a black-ops financial pipeline that appears to be funding a shadow 828 investigation. The flow of money into the investigation recently doubled, making him wonder the reason for the spike.
Next, we meet teenager and fellow Flight-828 passenger TJ (Garrett Wareing) who will be at the center of this week’s bottle crime story. Prior to flying to Jamaica, he was making his mom proud by doing well in school and studying Latin. His life turned upside down since his return when he learned that she overdosed on pills and died a month after his disappearance. In his absence, the school emptied his dorm room and the landlord tossed his mom’s belongings out, leaving him with nothing, not even a picture of his mom. Wareing’s fine performance enhances TJ’s authenticity, the young man to whom life has thrown a devastating curve ball. As expected, he is also seeing and hearing things, such as a vision of being inside his own grave, which makes Ben wonder at first if TJ is having a calling about his own death. As it turns out, it was the vision of a dead girl (named Frannie) because a subsequent calling leads TJ to find the burial spot and her corpse.
Jared is not buying the story about the callings although Ben vouches for the young man. The evidence available does not help TJ’s case either. From Jared’s perspective, he is guilty because he alone knew the location and his fingerprints are found in Frannie’s dorm room.
In the meantime, Grace is about to have her blood drawn for the paternity test when she hears a calling that repeatedly says “Stop.” Agitated, she rips the band out of her arm and storms out of the room with Ben following her. After a brief reflection, Ben and Grace joyfully conclude that it must be their child, because it is the only way to explain Grace hearing a calling. Ben’s offspring possesses his abilities, thus the callings. This is further confirmed in a much-later scene when Saanvi is holding the paternity results in her hand and looking rather giddy, and the camera briefly shows the words “Paternity confirmed.”
The question remains, why did the calling say “stop” if it is indeed Ben’s baby? This is neatly explored when no callings are heard at the time Saanvi conducts the paternity test. On the one hand, one can say that the calling wanted to stop Grace from having her blood taken by another physician who may discover the blood marker. On the other hand, if the callings have such omnipotent awareness powers, then why would they also not warn against Saanvi being privy to medical data about Grace and the baby? Is she not the one, after all, who is (unknowingly) passing all the crucial information to the Major about the baby, the blood marker, and the callings being genetically transferable? Taken from this angle, does Saanvi knowing about the baby not constitute a much greater danger than some random physician discovering (or possibly not) the existence of a blood marker?
Saanvi, the ultimate awesome-nerd-scientist, is also super-duper hyped about having proof that the callings can be transferred, as opposed to Grace whose immediate concern is the possibility of the baby getting tagged with a death date.
Michaela, in the meantime, is having a dismal day. She tries to visit Zeke in jail but he refuses to see her. When she tries to pull the cop card to the prison guard to see him anyway, the guard stops short of mocking her. This all takes place before she even gets back to the precinct where she learns that Captain Bowers assigned her a new partner by the name of Drea Mikami (Ellen Tamaki). Michaela does not like it (nor does Jared, naturally) and dares to voice her concern to Capt. Bowers, leading to the first of a pair of scoldings of Michaela by the Captain in this episode. Poor Michaela gets scolded two additional times, one by Jared and the other by Ben (yes, even Ben!). Add to that tally, her being physically forced out of the courtroom at Zeke’s hearing in a slightly over-dramatic scene where he pleads guilty to all charges, and you can comfortably conclude that Michaela’s day just went from dismal to downright miserable.
She decides to take out her frustration on her new partner, one could almost say. She questions Drea’s motivation for becoming a cop, considering that she comes from a rich family, a conclusion she draws solely based on Drea’s vernacular habits and expensive watch — a bit judgy there, ain’t you Mick? Drea admits to having a wealthy background but claims to love her job. Michaela’s message is clear: Drea must earn her trust, or else. Roxburgh’s portrayal of the snarky-slash-mean-slash-peeved Michaela is on target as usual.
Later, as Jared arrests TJ at the precinct, Michaela begins to shake uncontrollably from a vision, along with Cal who is in his bedroom at the house and Zeke at the lawn of the prison. Ben believes it has to do with TJ being innocent and asks her – or rather, commands her – to further investigate the case.
Michaela and Drea discover notes in Latin in Frannie’s room only to learn from one of her sorority sisters that she was an art student and never took Latin. Her art centered on collecting stuff from trash bins to create her own works. This leads Michaela to understand that TJ had never been in Frannie’s room, but that Frannie happened to collect his stuff after they had been thrown out following his disappearance. Right at that moment, she gets the same vision as TJ, someone burying her in soil, and notices a hole in the perpetrator’s shoe.
This meticulously laid-out plotline eventually brings us to campus security where Michaela and Drea must figure out why there is not a log of Frannie applying for an extra key card, considering that she had two of them. More specifically, who was on the night shift a couple of days ago when Frannie came to request a new card? A guard named Wilkins (David Anthony Buglione), whom we briefly saw in the beginning at the crime scene, first gets called on his lie about not seeing any student requesting a new card, then attempts to run away (the classic device for any criminal to declare their guilt in the land of TV series) when Michaela brings up his shoes. After the arrest, Drea wonders about Michaela’s shoe angle and states, “I assume you’re gonna clue me in as to what just happened.” Detective Stone has zero interest in doing so.
Back at the precinct, it’s a happy ending for TJ, although he cannot figure out why the calling came after Frannie’s murder. The Stone siblings (a.k.a., the callings experts-du-jour) give him an ‘Introduction to Callings 101’ crash-course. As TJ learns for himself when he and Ben visit the art gallery where Frannie’s works are on display, callings can often be useful. One of Frannie’s art works on display is a piece that she created out of TJ’s stuff, with a picture of him and his mom at its center. Ben, never short of profound wisdom, says to TJ, “That’s why the calling led you to find her, ‘cause she found you.”
As for Saanvi, during one of her counseling sessions (or what she believes to be one) with the Major, she mentions the DNA sequencer and spills out her findings about the possibility of the callings being genetically transferable, information carefully noted by the Major. This is followed up later when Vance figures out that the Major ordered a DNA sequencer. “How the hell does the Major know about Saanvi’s discovery?” Ben wonders out loud. Saanvi is on fast track to find herself at the center of an epochal mess.
Lastly, there is Olive who is in a state of despondency as the result of being the only family member left not to experience callings. To make matters worse, she turns to the one source where she is the least likely to find solutions, as many teenagers who feel like outcasts do. Never mind that she is also putting herself in a position to hurt her family further. Coming out of a bookstore, she runs into a random but friendly girl named Maxine (Erika Chase) who passes her a brochure about the Church of the Believers led by Adrian, another Flight 828 Passenger first seen in “Crosswinds.” We got a glimpse of how quickly the number of his followers was increasing back in “Upgrade,” as well as his dismissal of Ben’s warnings about deceiving people.
Olive’s journey as a teenager in disarray who turns to a cult to fulfill a need for belonging is surprisingly well-depicted considering the limited time that the story gets in the episode. Hats off to Luna Blaise for painting Olive’s portrait so vividly, including her bitterness at first when she learns of Grace’s calling, and despair later when her desire to help Cal is brushed aside with a “you wouldn’t understand” response. I can only assume that watching Olive implore Cal, “I can help. At least let me try,” provoked an emotional response from viewers at a visceral level, the way it did for me. In any case, Cal’s response is the final straw, Olive’s had enough. We last see her heading into the Church of the Believers, accompanied by her new friend Maxine.
Last-minute thoughts:
– Olive tells her mom that she is not mad because she resents being the only one not to get callings, but rather because she is terrified that everyone in her family could be gone in 5 years. I must admit to having read Olive’s reaction wrong, just like Grace did.
– Ben thanks his sister, in a lovely brotherly way, when TJ gets released at the precinct. Chalk one up in the win column for Michaela. She sure could use one in this episode.
– Speaking of Michaela’s hardships, Captain Bowers is miffed about her flimsy “anonymous tip” explanation every time she solves an outrageous case. Is this type of exchange is even possible? Can detectives simply write “anonymous tip” in their reports and not have to explain in detail how they solved a case? For my part, I totally understand Capt. Bowers. The constant lack of transparency by one of my subordinates, instead of keeping me in the loop (isn’t that part of their duty?), would gravely irritate me. In any case, Capt. Bowers orders Michaela and Jared (who just vouched for Mick) to be nowhere near each other in future investigations.
– Michaela is moving to her own apartment, much to Cal’s chagrin.
– An old classmate of Ben named Suzanne (Yasha Jackson) runs into him at the gallery. She is now a dean and enthusiastically tells Ben to send her his CV. Obviously, we will see Suzanne again.
– Troy Davis (Ed Herbstman), the nosy lab tech from “Estimated Time of Arrival” who had also noticed the blood marker, helps Saanvi out with the DNA sequencer. I am inclined to believe at this point that he is a harmless dude who likes Saanvi. He even asks her out for a cup of coffee (assuming that counts as “asking out” nowadays).
Until the next episode…
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