“Killshot: Pt. 2” aired on January 28, 2020
Written by: Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters
Directed by: Paul McGuigan
Grade: 3 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Emergence’s first season is in the books on the heels of a two-part season finale high on action and shock value, but not carrying enough substance to recover from the game of diminishing returns in which it had been engaged over the second half of the season due to lack of coherence and direction for the most part. More on that later, let’s dive into the finale first.

We pick up exactly from where “Killshot: Pt. 1” ended, with Helen chasing Ryan and Jo who shielded themselves in some room with a steel door at the compound on the island. Apparently, the rustling sound they heard as part 1 ended was that of Helen turning into nano-dust form and making her way through the water pipes in the ceiling to enter the room. By the time the dust drops down from the ceiling and rematerializes as Helen, Jo and Ryan already left the room.

A kookier scene occurs later when a single nanobot, in the form of a bug, reaches Ryan and Jo through the pipes in another room, penetrates under Jo’s skin through her palm, and travels up to her head. Agent Brooks stops its progress at her neck by pinching it with his fingers right around Jo’s carotid artery, I kid you not! He grabs a butcher’s knife and cuts it out with a swift move that required his whole arm to swing around, meaning that Jo’s artery should have probably burst asunder and left her bleeding profusely. Instead, Ryan just saved Jo and flung the nanobug across the room. Who cares where the nanobug is or if it could crawl right back at them, because it is more urgent that the camera focuses on Jo breathing a sigh of relief as she looks deep into her male savior’s eyes followed by putting her forehead against his to show her gratitude.

In the meantime, Alex arrives at the precinct with Piper (remember, Alex finally relented and agreed to take Piper to see Benny, despite Jo’s strict instructions not to do so in last week’s part 1). Chris informs them about Jo going to Plum Island and decides, out of the blues (read: contrivance), to show Piper and Alex the exabyte disk that Jo left for him to safekeep. Piper recognizes the disk, “this is me,” then suddenly asks to go to the bathroom. When she rejoins them moments later, she is accompanied by Benny who is somehow freed from the locked cell. Do not dwell on how he could get out or the randomness of Piper wanting to go the bathroom and freeing Benny in plain sight at the precinct because Chris, acting all upset, pulls his gun out and points it at Benny, partially to mitigate the outrageous nature of the sequence, and partially to get the narrative to the point that anyone watching the show saw coming miles ahead: Benny and Piper are going to Plum Island (Alex and Chris tag along for good measure) to join Jo and Ryan for the denouement featuring the fight against the evil machine.

Another massive suspension of disbelief is yet still needed when the four of them show up at the facility moments later and run into Jo and Ryan. In other words, they left Southold PD, contacted Yousef, convinced him to take them to the island, met him by the dock, traveled by boat to the island, got off and arrived at the compound, and located Jo and Ryan inside, during all of which Jo and Ryan somehow managed to evade Helen through corridors and rooms (and water pipes) in the compound. Anyhoo, they come across a well-sealed biocontainment laboratory and decide to isolate themselves in it to hide from Helen.

In the meantime, back in Southold, Chris had supposedly handed an envelope with the exabyte disk to Ed, because we see Ed arriving home and locking it away in the safety box at home.

Remember the cliché-ridden muckamuck (played by Currie Graham) from the Department of Justice whose speaking style forayed into the 1950s noir-fiction comic-book genre when he intervened in the FBI agents’ interrogation of Brooks in “Killshot: Pt. 1”? His name is Michael Denham, he is back and even more irritating than before. He arrives at Jo’s home with his men, waves a search warrant, donning a smile like a cardboard villain.

Denman wants to retrieve what “belongs to the federal government” (the exabyte disk), he claims, while otherwise making abject comments to Ed like, “You look okay for a cancer guy.” Eventually, Denham’s men find the safety box and do what is necessary to get it open, only to find a necklace inside the envelope. Denham tells his men that it’s time for to leave and it’s Ed’s time to gloat with a grin: “Eh, what a shame, Mr. Denman. Wasting all that time and taxpayer money for nothing.” Well played, Ed!

Back to Plum Island…

Jo and the others realize that Benny snuck out of the containment lab with the killshot. Jo decides to go after him and Chris follows her because… that is who Chris is! Aside from being a mensch, he is also the most loyal deputy of all times – Side note: This is about when I really began feeling nervous about Chris surviving the season finale.

When Jo catches up with Benny, he is in the mainframe room, switching the power off to lure Helen there. He convinces Jo to hide and allow him to inject Helen with the killshot. When Helen arrives, Benny tells her that Jo and the others are on the roof. Helen, still under the impression that Benny is an ally, says “let’s get it over with” and turns around to walk. Benny uses the opportunity to stick the killshot in her back. The problem is, we are only halfway through the episode and Helen cannot die, especially without Piper’s involvement in the final showdown. The killshot has zero impact (naturally), except to annoy Helen enough so that she puts her palm on Benny’s chest and makes him collapse to the floor in agony. She leaves as Benny’s liquid-blood is gushing out of his body to the floor. Jo comes out of hiding to comfort Benny in his last seconds with a profoundly soothing look into his eyes that glimmer one last time before he dies (read: shuts off, gets permanently deleted).

Next, we see Jo at the containment lab to update Alex and Ryan, except that Chris is not with her and she is speaking in a monotonous, mechanical tone. That’s right folks. We learn, out of nowhere, that AIs in Emergence can also shapeshift. That is Helen disguised as Jo talking to Ryan and Alex!

She wants them to hand over the power source, but Alex notices her bizarre disposition and warns Ryan who has the device in his pocket. Ryan pulls out his gun, but “Jo” quickly turns into a dust of nanobots and swarms the two men. Piper comes to the rescue, making the Helen-swarm leave the room with a single stare, except that Helen pickpocketed Ryan in the process and stole the power source. Amazingly, the only FBI agent to show interest in this globally consequential case also happens to be one of the most useless law-enforcement agents living in the land of primetime TV.

Helen is next seen in a room with the energy bubble, taking out the power source from her pocket. Piper enters the room to check the final box in the list of requirements for what has been telegraphed long time ago: the final showdown pitting her against the big-bad monster.

Helen activates the energy sphere, starting an upload and causing Piper to float lifelessly in the air. As she approaches Piper, Jo appears out of nowhere, snaps the wristband on Helen, and knocks her out with one of the most potent right lead-hooks ever executed by a non-boxer.  It was apparently a set-up by the Piper to distract Helen, although I am not sure how they could have foreseen Helen making Piper float with the upload, nor do I believe they accounted for Helen’s arm breaking the frame of the energy sphere as she was falling down after Jo’s hook, causing the sphere grow louder and rotate wildly.

Alex, Chris, and Ryan join Piper and Jo in the room. Considering that the energy sphere is rotating frantically and about to explode “like a nuke,” according to Alex at least, they move to escape but stop quickly once they notice Piper murmuring in most humdrum tone possible (for some reason), “It won’t be enough. It will be too big. Bigger than this building. Bigger than this island. It will go all the way to our house. And farther than that.”

Piper, who had apparently switched the exabyte disk with Mia’s necklace at some unknown point, hands it to Jo, then forms an impenetrable barrier around her and the sphere like the one she formed around the car when a truck was speeding straight for her, Ed, and Mia back in “RDZ9021.” In short, she is sacrificing herself to save everyone else!

A ray of light originating from the sphere eventually shoots into the sky from the top of the building. A moment later, it’s dark and calm again, Piper and the sphere are missing, and Helen’s body is still laying on the ground. The brilliant (!) Alex tells Jo to use the disk and Helen’s body to bring Piper back. Helen is somehow going to magically transform into Piper!

As if it did not sound outrageous enough, it’s when Alex justifies his crackpot idea by saying that he saw Helen become Jo, “so why not, right?” that it begins to eerily feel like the writing room knew of how outrageous the script really is, because consider Jo’s immediate reaction to Alex and his follow-up justification:
Jo: “Are you insane?”
Alex: “Maybe. But this whole thing is kind of insane, right?”

Haha… okay!

Sure enough, Jo places the disk on Helen’s wrist. Helen opens her eyes and smiles. Jo smiles back. Nanobyte transformation turns Helen into Piper. More smiles. Hugs. Tears of joy. We’re going home, boys and girls!

Ryan, Chris, and Abby join the family celebration where Piper reminds Ed of Helen’s promise to cure him of cancer, and claims that she can now achieve that goal herself with a bit of work. Then, it’s time for some reckoning of the heart for Jo as Ryan first, then Alex, in their different ways, let her know separately that they would like to know where “she stands.”

The one with Alex gets especially sensitive when he informs her that he is moving, having accepted Francis’s job offer (made in “Applied Sciences”). As the two say their goodbyes and Alex is about to enter the car, Jo rushes to him and implores him to stay. Alex asks “Why?” even explicitly stating that he would stay if it were because she still loves him and wants another go at their marriage.

The problem, as it has always been, is that Jo shilly-shallies whenever the topic of commitment comes up. She remains silent again here, which pretty much answers Alex’s question. I love happy endings for couples as much as the person next door, but at no point in this season did Jo’s comportment signal anything toward Alex about needing him around for reasons beyond safety, occasional company, and convenience. He repeats for the umpteenth time that he cannot stay around while she is figuring out what she wants.

Back at the island, a major clean-up operation (read: making evidence disappear) is underway. Benny is carried away in a body bag while Loretta and Denham examine the mainframe room. They find the used killshot and see no signs of Helen. However, Loretta claims that Helen is partly integrated into Piper and she can verify that by pressing a button on some gadget that she has in her hand. The remote-control gadget must have a viewer either showing Piper’s room or her body signals, because they keep looking at it as Helen reminds Michael that it is where he just “executed a search warrant.” As soon as Helen presses the button, we see Piper’s eyes pop open in her bed back at Jo’s house, before the screen turns dark and the season comes to an end.

Loretta’s enthusiasm about seeing Helen functional implies that she told Ryan and Jo a fairy tale back at the garage about wanting to eliminate Helen. Wouldn’t that awkwardly mean that her plan was to get Jo and the gang to stop Helen but hope and pray at the same time that they do not destroy her in the process? And if her plan were to ultimately integrate Helen into Piper’s body somehow, how could she have possibly predicted Alex turning into a genius at the right moment and thinking of using the disk to transform Helen into Piper? That would make Loretta the most punctilious vaticinator of modern times. Assuming that Helen is inside Piper now as Loretta claims, which AI is in control anyway?

Notice that the questions above do not even venture into the high-stake area of questions such as what happened to Piper’s body, what that ray of light did in which direction, if some alien species beamed Piper and the sphere away, or how on earth is Piper the only AI with feelings (oh wait, Benny began having them too, oh dear).

I would love some payoffs to the above questions, and more, but I am not holding my breath. The increasing lack of direction and recent dependence on shock-schlock twists have turned into liabilities for Emergence in the late stages of the season after a solid start. The lead duo of Piper and Jo began as multi-angled, clever characters, only to end up as no more than the savior AI (Piper) and her protective-mother figure (Jo) whose only other principal quality is to perpetually remain romantically confused.

With all due respect to Enver Gjokaj as an actor (solid performer in 3022), I fail to see Agent Brooks’s significant contribution to the season as a character, when so much more could have been accomplished with his screentime had Kindred and Wilkis not been written off and Emily portrayed as an unstable figure. Perhaps, Ryan was introduced to make up for the alarming lack of law-enforcement presence in function of a case that should have put every federal agency and global organizations to high alert, instead of solely falling on the shoulders of the Southold PD’s chief and her one loyal deputy. Speaking of Southold, have we been introduced, in a meaningful way, to any of its residents exccept Yousef? What happened to the process of worldbuilding?

In terms of pure plot machinations, what began as a genuinely intriguing mystery has evolved into a string of narrative shifts, dying characters, and whole lot of hand-waving, before underwhelmingly settling into a garden variety of good AI vs. bad AI.

That being said, the nucleus of the show always had potential, which means that a creative writing room can still fabricate engaging storylines around the existing material, add depth to current characters, introduce new ones, and make its location alive and layered. Countless shows suffered through growing pains in their initial seasons only to turn into hits. The question is, can Emergence successfully turn that sharp corner, and more importantly, will it even get that chance (hint: see ratings)?

Last-minute thoughts:

— At the entrance of the biocontainment area there is a sign saying, “Warning: Live Virus Area.” Not that it mattered, or that anyone cared.

— Helen’s accidental hand-contact with the energy sphere’s frame as she is falling must be what kills her, I presume. As potent as Jo’s right lead-hook was, I doubt it could kill an AI on the spot, regardless of the wristband.

Until season 2, pending renewal…   

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“Killshot: Pt. 1” aired on January 21, 2020
Written by: Joey Siara
Directed by: Craig Zisk
Grade: 2.5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

As do many shows in their initial seasons, Emergence has had its fair share of successful moments along with a number of growing pains. On the extreme plus side, I can cite as an example the splendid synergy on display between the members of the singularly formed “3+1 AI” family residing in Jo’s house.

On the extreme minus side, barring a drastic change in the season finale, one of the great failures of the show’s first season will most likely go down as the slow-but-steady, and unfortunate, descent of Helen from a promising, multi-layered character into the one-dimensional comic-book villain type, and by extension, the inability of the showrunners to make effective use of Rowena King’s wide-ranging talent. Depending on Loretta’s involvement and role in the season finale to come (and possibly in future seasons), I reserve the right to walk back my assertion following “by-extension” in the previous sentence, but what comes before can hardly be salvaged because Helen is a bona fide cardboard villain for all practical purposes at this point.

Consider the opening scene for example, where Helen and Emily – another unevenly penned character, thus shortchanging the talents of Maria Dizzia, as I previously noted here and here – engage in a dialogue so cringe-worthy that I considered for a moment fast-forwarding through it during my second watch, something that rarely crosses my mind otherwise, but held back on doing so, hence subjecting myself again, as I sip my drink, to lines such as:

— Helen: “You and I are mothers, Emily, we are mothers of the evolution.” [sip]
— Helen: “You should be celebrated and nurtured.” [sip]
— Emily: “I can talk to Chief Evans and see if she wants to adopt you.” [sip]
— Helen’s slashed throat repairs itself, Emily comments: “Neat.” [sip, gulp]
— Helen ends the conversation: “If you fail, this knife will end up in your throat, not mine.” [sip, gulp]
— The melodramatic, à-la Turkish soap-opera-ish music with loud drumbeats accompanies the stares of the two women. [Sip, gulp, collapse!]

Oh-kay! Anyhoo…

Helen basically wants Emily to work with another AI named Justin (Manu Narayan) and write a new code so that she can possess the same abilities that Piper does.

Back at Jo’s household, Mia and Ed are attempting to remove Piper’s wristband, to no avail. Piper suggests that Benny may know how to do it because he is “like her”, but Jo has zero interest in letting her near him and firmly replies: “he is nothing like you.” She later calls the FBI but cannot reach Brooks who seems to be missing after a no-show at the detention center to return Emily in custody. Unbeknownst to Jo is the unsettling shooting that took place in the final seconds of last week’s “Applied Sciences.”

During a conversation between Jo and the captured Benny that mainly serves as information dump, Benny tries to justify his actions by claiming that he was programmed to collect data for an upload and not ask questions about it. According to him, Helen needs a power source to facilitate the update, specifically, the one that they stole from the defense contractor and transported with a boat to the island back in “15 Years.” If she succeeds, it will mean the end of the AIs, including Benny and Piper who will practically turn into empty shells. Jo is not convinced that Benny is different, like he claims to be (Piper agrees), but she is deeply concerned about losing Piper if he is indeed telling the truth.

Jo gets a suspicious call from a woman with a British accent giving the number of a room in the hospital where Abby works. Once at the hospital, Jo learns that Agent Brooks is kept in that room after being dropped at the hospital by an unidentified party. He was shot twice, suffered a concussion and a cracked rib.

Things turn murkier when FBI agents show up looking for him while he is having a flashback dream of the night before, seeing Helen sitting in the front seat of a vehicle looking back at him (more on this below). Jo wakes him up in a hurry and with the help of Walter the nurse (third appearance after “Pilot” and “2 MG CU BID”) using his voluminous body to conceal Brooks, and Abby stalling the agents, Jo and Ryan manage to escape.

Jo wants Ryan to hide at the Southold PD until she can bring Emily back in custody. Brooks is understandably confused about seeing Helen in the front seat of the car that saved him from the shooting and brought him to the hospital. Ah, but it was Loretta, Helen’s identical-looking creator, or so says Loretta, in a later scene!

Wait! Whaaat?!?

Brooks was shot twice by shooters from a few feet away in “Applied Sciences.” Loretta would have had to zoom to the spot at maximum warp speed, somehow neutralize the shooters in a matter of a second or two before they pull the trigger again, drag/carry the heavily injured Agent Brooks into her car, and drive him to the hospital.

Or, could she have already been in the vehicle as part of the team with the shooters? If so, why would they shoot Benny? And what about Helen, Loretta’s “evil-twin creation,” who was also there because she stopped Emily from running away? Did Loretta see Helen and vice-versa? There is a lot that does not add up here, unless Loretta is Helen and lying through her teeth, which would be a contrivance of gargantuesque proportions. I hope we get some meaningful explanations to these inconsistencies at some point, but I am not holding my breath.

Speaking of inconsistencies, Agent Brooks is, by then, looking and acting as if he never suffered a concussion or a cracked rib, let alone got shot twice less than 24 hours ago. Stop the press! Is he an AI? Wooooooow… [Sip, gulp, collapse! Again].

FBI somehow knows (don’t ask how) that Brooks is hiding at the precinct and apprehends him there. More accurately, Brooks decides to turn himself in once they arrive, but not before locking lips with a delighted Jo who attempts to act as if she were not delighted for no apparent reason.

She later arrives home and unlocks Piper’s wristband. Knowing that Benny must have shown her how to do that, Piper presses Jo again about setting him free, to no avail.

Back to Brooks, whose run-of-the-mill interrogation by two FBI agents is interrupted by some ultra-important dude from the Department of Justice (played by Currie Graham, whom you may remember as Mario Siletti from Murder in the First) who flashes his Office of the US Attorney General ID card and swiftly kicks the agents out. The cliché-ridden portrayal of this muckamuck, as well as the lines he delivers, foray into the 1950s noir-fiction comic-book genre. “Hey man! That’s a cute shirt,” is his opening line to Brooks. [Sip, gulp, collapse! Once more!]

To make a long story short, he sets Brooks free, reassuring him that “it’ll be like none of this ever happened,” and supplying him with a new badge, gun, phone, and a car, most of which Brooks ditches in the trash bin outside as soon as he exits the building. He heads to Jo’s house (ain’t that a smart move?) to inform her that her name is all over the FBI files**. That must have played to some secret fetish that Jo harbors because sooner than later, she is all over Brooks kissing him passionately.

**This brings back my ongoing criticism of how underpopulated the universe of Emergence remains in terms of law-enforcement and intelligence presence considering the number of deaths, murders, and disappearances, including a global celebrity in Richard Kindred, and the gigantic impact of the case and its potential consequence on the future of humanity. One of the last remaining explanations was that maybe nobody knew about Piper, the AIs, and what took place at the beach, etc. Now, you can shelve that flimsy justification away too. Not only is it confirmed that the FBI is fully aware of Jo, Piper, and what goes on in Southold, but so is the Office of the US Attorney General and the Department of Justice.

Ryan and Jo use an underground parking lot to expose whoever is tailing him. That would be Loretta, Helen’s identical look-alike, who presents herself as the one “who made Helen.” Except that they cannot verify the veracity of her claim because Jo does not have the exabyte disk with her.

This is when a large (but not all of it significant) amount of info-dumping begins. When Ryan asks who she works for, Loretta replies, “for the same government as you, Agent Brooks,” which means… what exactly? It should also be noted that Loretta conveniently bypasses Jo’s question, “Who are you?” Congrats, Jo the Chief of Police and Ryan the FBI Agent, for managing to learn nothing about this mysterious individual although you have her at gun point, and with whom you will soon agree to an important exchange. I digress, let me get back to the info-dumping.

18 years ago, Loretta and her colleagues intercepted a transmission of unknown origin, suspecting the involvement of China and Russia. They assumed the transmission contained instructions on how to build a weapon, but it turned out to carry instructions on how to build an AI. A team was formed around Loretta to pursue the endeavor and it was considered a success after Helen was created as the first AI. However, Helen torched the lab and the source code, and murdered Loretta’s entire team when she/it learned that they found out about her building her own AI. Since then, Loretta has been trying to track Helen down, but Jo and Ryan did it first (oh, the irony), and that is why Loretta was after them. She also admits to saving Ryan’s life and job (the muckamuck from the Dept. of Justice is apparently an associate). She is willing to share with Jo and Ryan a device that can effectively end Helen, but she wants the exabyte disk in exchange. She is interested in the source code, not Piper.

Elsewhere, in the most interesting storyline of the hour, perhaps its saving grace, Emily is working on gaining Justin’s sympathy while concocting an elaborate escape plan. It appears that Justin has developed an affection for her, showing a genuine desire to help her build a new code for Helen. He even expresses frustration at failing to do things that Emily asks of him. At one point, he pounds the table in anger, which makes the box on the floor shake and tremble – don’t ask what the box is doing there without Helen present. Emily opens it and we see the liquid sphere inside the container, same as the one Alex and Chris found in the boat in “15 Years,” bubbling and causing electrical static.

Emily makes the connection between Justin’s frustration and the bubble’s agitation, thus begins to slap and hit Justin to observe its reaction. The bubble rises from the box and begins emitting strong signals (or something). At the same time, Benny is off the ground floating in his cell with his head turned upward to the ceiling, just like Piper is at the house as Alex, Mia, and Ed watch her in shock. When Alex grabs and carries her to the couch, Piper opens her eyes and affirms that the upload has started. Yet, it somehow gets interrupted without an explanation (Emily stopped bitch-slapping Justin?).

Luckily, the electrical charge turned Chris’s phone on, the one he left on the boat back in “15 Years,” which means its signal can now be used to track Helen’s location (I am not even attempting to explain how that phone made it to the same room as Emily and Justin instead of getting confiscated or destroyed). It points to Plum Island where there used to be a research facility – previously mentioned in “Pilot.” Jo decides to make the deal with Loretta against Ryan’s advice because, she figures, if there is a weapon that can kill Helen, they will need it when she and Ryan go to Plum Island next. The exchange is made, Loretta gets the exabyte disk, Jo gets a loaded needle embedded with protein enzyme that is supposed to kill Helen.

Back at the facility, much to Emily’s surprise, Justin is capable of independent thought and willing to escape with her. Much to Justin’s chagrin, Emily is not interested in escaping with him, because that would give Helen a legitimate reason to pursue her. She apparently pulled the wool over poor Justin’s eyes, merely feeding off his imagination in virtual reality to find the escape route, because the next shot shows Justin still sitting in the room with his eyes closed, in a state of trance, with electrodes attached to his head. Helen finds him in that state and executes him shortly after, because that is what Helen has lately been reduced to, a ruthless executioner. Hats off to Narayan though, for milking every ounce of the limited time as Justin, somehow managing to make the viewers feel sorry for an AI.  

Chris finds an envelope outside Benny’s cell at the precinct, containing the exabyte disk, meaning that Jo took a fake one to the exchange with Loretta! How did Chris know it was Piper’s disk? Benny recognized it because, well, he wanted to look at it up close and just like that, our trusting deputy Chris handed it to him. In the meantime, at Jo’s house, Piper convinces Alex (doesn’t take much, never mind Jo’s firm directives) to take her to Benny because, she adamantly claims, they need him to save Jo from danger.

At the facility, Jo and Brooks find Helen handling a round container filled with nanobyte spikes in dust form – feel free to come up with a better description. Helen instantly throws both Ryan and Jo against the wall with a simple glance in their direction (if looks could kill, right?) She does not flinch when Brooks shoots at her twice from close range, but one bullet from Jo’s gun and she disintegrates into a dust of nanobytes. I’d rather not ask questions and assume (even though I’m probably wrong) that the needle was in Jo’s gun, thus having that effect on Helen, before assuming that Brooks is the worst shooter in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Jo and Ryan run away with the round container when they notice Helen rematerializing. Apparently, when Helen slammed them against the wall in this convoluted scene, the table also took a tumble and the container ‘conveniently’ rolled toward Jo on the ground, allowing her to grab it. They escape into some room in the underground, shutting a steel door behind them to keep Helen out. Soon, lights flicker, rustling and banging sounds emanate from behind the door, and the screen goes dark, bringing the outing to an end.

There are so many gaps and inconsistencies in this episode that I do not know where to begin. I already noted the non-existent effect of Brooks’s bullets vs the one shot from Jo’s gun that temporarily turns Helen to dust. My assumption of Jo’s gun having the needle is probably wrong because it did not kill Helen (I lost count of how many so-called AIs have rematerialized from dust on TV shows or movies over the years). So, if Helen’s job is accomplished and she got the new code uploaded, does it even matter that Jo has the container? What is exactly in it then, if not metal spikes or nanobytes in dust form? And why did the upload get interrupted earlier? I will stop here for the moment because the finale is yet to come.

Let’s see if Part 2 can bring meaningful explanations to these questions, but I am not setting my hopes too high. “Killshot Pt. 1” suffers from what I call “penultimatepisode-itis,” the disease that has been crippling TV shows for as long as I have been a steadfast follower of primetime TV, the one causing penultimate episodes to be treated like fleeting after-thoughts, with little tender-loving care, because they solely exist to arrive at some variation of the announcement, “next week in the season finale…” — Side note: Both the term and the diagnosis are my own, no credible source cited (read: Love it or leave it).

On the one hand, does anyone believe for a moment that the final denouement can take place without showcasing Piper in some type of a showdown against either a villain or a force? On the other hand, does this mean that what comes prior to the finale can afford to be chalked up to the “forgettable” column at some level? I am not saying that the writers took this approach here, but “Killshot: Pt. 1” is nonetheless a forgettable episode. I hope this season comes down to more than just Piper eliminating the big bad threat, and actually carries a deeper meaning, or better yet, sets a worthwhile story path for season 2 that can catapult Emergence to more pioneering grounds in the land of paranormal thrillers.

Fingers crossed for a solid season finale…

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“Applied Sciences” aired on January 14, 2020
Written by: Jerome Schwartz & Nick Parker
Directed by: J. Miller Tobin
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Restrained, a bit subdued, but well-constructed, “Applied Sciences” is a definite improvement from last week’s mediocre “15 Years,” largely because of the return of Piper, Benny, and Helen to the forefront of the narrative. The opening scene alone shows, for example, what a great addition Rowena King is to the recurring cast as she plays the progressively ruthless Helen with chilling authenticity.

Helen visits an AI in the suburbs to execute him because, it appears, he fulfilled his purpose in their overall mission. I am simply going to assume that she got rid of the body and did not leave it laying in the front yard of the family house in your typical Jones’s suburban neighborhood.

Following that somewhat petrifying sequence, the episode moves on to a series of scenes containing a number of jocular dialogues worth your time. It begins with Jo and Brooks bringing Charlie’s corpse to Abby for examination.

The doctor’s reaction is priceless:

“So, what the hell do you want me to do? Resurrect him? No way, get the jumper cables.”

A bit later:

Abby: “You want me to do an AI autopsy?”

Jo: “Yeah, that.”

Zabryna Guevara is absolutely delightful to watch here as she delivers one sarcastic observation after another – also check out her replies to Brooks and Jo as they attempt to convince her that Charlie is “not actually a guy.” I chuckled even more the second time I watched the scene. More humor ensues in subsequent scenes – Alex’s cute attempt to get Jo’s permission to continue playing the deputy, Abby’s snark when she sees Emily, etc.

Next morning at the house, Jo relays Piper’s message to Mia about not being afraid, making Mia and Ed’s eyes light up, because that is confirmation that Piper received their ham-radio message. It also means that the binary-code message Mia recorded on her phone was indeed Piper’s reply back to them. Jo knows who to contact to break the code, the unstable genius Emily who is easily seduced into collaborating with them when she hears that Charlie’s chip is from at least 15 years ago, before her time.

Abby’s autopsy yields no results. Charlie’s body is identical to a human’s, except that it is not, as Emily affirms. She wants it hooked up to the computer to solve the binary code. There are some light-weight explanations by Emily as to how any of the sci-fi things that she does is really possible throughout the morgue sequence. You would do yourself a favor by not taking the nit-picky rout and just rolling with it. Just trust the episode’s title, “Applied Sciences.”

Alex brings a buddy of his, Francis Baker (Gabriel Sloyer), to the Police Department to help Chris in solving what they saw on the boat in the last episode. He was Alex’s roommate and lab partner back in graduate school and now works at a firm that handles government contracts on “cutting-edge stuff,” whatever that means. The fidgety Chris (Robert Bailey Jr. is once again terrific here) is reluctant to disobey his boss who apparently gave him firm directives to no longer involve Alex with any type of investigation. An enthusiastic Alex overpowers him nonetheless, along with his nerdy friend Francis. They produce some technobabble verbiage (I told you to trust the episode title) to basically indicate that the crate was taken somewhere with a large power draw.

Back at the morgue, Emily cracks the code. It is an invitation from Piper for Jo to join her through the virtual backdoor gate, similar to the one that we saw back in “Fatal Exception” containing the library with blue and red books. This time, Jo needs to find a gold one in which Emily put Piper’s memories since the time of her kidnapping a month earlier, and destroy it. Have I missed something here? How did Emily have access to Piper since she has been with Benny and Helen? My best guess is that she created the gold book when she kidnapped Piper herself in “Fatal Exception,” prior to the time of Helen and Benny. In any case, a reluctant Jo must destroy the gold book to revert Piper back to that moment and cancel the changes made to her system by Benny and Helen.

Except that Piper has not changed! When they meet, she tells Jo that she is faking it with Helen and Benny and that her actual objective is to fix Benny and the rest of the AIs. Jo is not on board with her staying with them, “I don’t care about Benny, I care about you,” and she throws the gold book in the fireplace. Piper is having none of that. She uses her superpowers (that seem to have no limit now) to extinguish the fire and expresses her disappointment to Jo before closing the backdoor connection. Jo committed the typical adult error, not giving enough credit to a child’s mind, forgetting that Piper is not your typical child.

Emily has one last card to deal. Since Jo was in Charlie’s head to connect to Piper, she can use Charlie’s brain to trace Piper’s location, “at least somewhere close.” As I said, trust the title.

In the meantime, Piper has been working on Benny. She knows he feels guilty about betraying Jo and she is trying to get through to him to change his mind. She better hurry because Helen has noticed the incision behind her ear and suspects (correctly) that Piper no longer has the chip. They take her to a facility where the guard at the door joins them as they walk inside to a room full of shelves and metal boxes.

After the guard brings a crate that Helen needed, she executes him in front of Piper and takes a menacing tone with her. She lets her know that she is aware of her devious plans to change Benny and the rest. Piper can either share her gift with Helen, or Helen can take it by force. Piper, frightened, does what she usually does when she is frightened, making objects fly around to defend herself. In a visually captivating and well-directed scene, she traps Helen to the wall with metal crates and shelves before running away, not forgetting to set the alarm on her way out, with a wiggle of her hand from a distance, mind you? She lies to Benny, claiming that Helen told her to leave her behind and drive away.

Once at a safe distance, she confesses to trapping Helen at the facility and tries to convince Benny that she can help him. He must just look for the “real” Benny inside his head. Oh Piper, you sweet AI girl! Benny slaps on her the wristband that takes away her powers and puts her in the trunk. Next, Piper hears a vehicle approaching and Jo opens the trunk a few seconds later. Chris and Jo had tracked Piper’s location to Monmouth County where they found them, conveniently, on some random street where Benny and Piper were chatting!

As Jo frees Piper, Benny appears from behind and points the gun at Jo. She and Piper use psycho-babble-emotional-manipulation to stop him from shooting, and naturally, they succeed as Benny lowers his gun. Piper cheers him on, saying that “it worked,” that he did it! Jo is not as jubilant, she nails Benny across the face with a crowbar.

We witness a happy reunion back at the house when Jo brings Piper home. Later that evening, Alex informs Jo that he got a job offer from Francis. Earlier in the episode, the two friends met at a bar and Francis advised Alex to move on, like everyone else around him has. He would like Alex to be the head of the new branch he is planning to open in D.C. The offer is lucrative, Alex is definitely interested. Jo is happy to hear about it until the moment she learns that it involves him moving to D.C. This is when Alex admits to Jo that he needs to move on and that he cannot “keep doing this” to himself. I felt as if Alex hoped for a reaction, some type of response, from Jo. Alas… Jo remains quiet!

You knew the episode would not end it on that subdued but emotionally charged dialogue, right? It had to end on a cliffhanger so we catch up with Brooks driving Emily back. Out of nowhere, the engine shuts down. It’s the AIs. Brooks tells Emily to run as he points his loaded shotgun at the approaching vehicle. Next, shown from Emily’s point of view, we see Brooks getting shot and Helen is standing right behind Emily as the curtains close on the episode.

Couple of last-minute thoughts:

– Why is Jo apologizing to Alex for sleeping in bed? Relax Jo, it’s really not that weird to fall asleep with your clothes on next to a good friend who happens to be your ex-husband, also with his clothes on. I cheered Alex’s reaction, consisting of a shoulder shrug followed by stating the obvious, “it’s your bed.”

– Two episodes left in the season, which are essentially parts 1 and 2 of the season finale.

Until the next episode…

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

“15 Years” aired on January 7, 2020
Written by: Brant Englestein & David H. Goodman
Directed by: Leslie Hope
Grade: 2 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

There are a few instances of quality acting by main-cast members Alison Tollman, Robert Bailey Jr., and guest star Enver Gjokaj, leading to pleasant scenes of synergy between Jo and Agent Brooks, as well as a few priceless reactions by Chris in response to out-of-the-left-field statements coming his way during dialogues.

These moments are, unfortunately, few and far between and cannot carry “15 Years,” an unmotivated episode that neither offers any amount of substantial character development, nor puts forth a compelling tale to advance the overriding arc in a noteworthy manner. It rather comes across like a footnote concerned with covering a period of time while moving from point A to B, except that there is no new territory conquered at the end of the day.

Nor does it help that two charismatic main characters are quasi-absent throughout the outing, except for about a minute at the very end. It is not by coincidence that the only eye-opening development of the outing occurs in those last 60 seconds, when Piper and Benny finally appear on screen and join Jo who, with some help from Brooks, has strenuously shouldered the burden of carrying the episode’s underwhelming A story. Gjokaj and Tollman squeeze the most out the run-of-the-mill search plot filled with contrivances and render it somewhat watchable thanks to their acting prowess.

The outing starts with them investigating Benny’s residence, after his disappearance during the astonishing turn of events that took place in the last ten minutes of the solid winter finale “Where You Belong.” Apparently, he closed his bank accounts and canceled his credit cards. His trail goes back only 15 years, a frustrated Brooks mutters, “it’s like he didn’t exist before then.”

Next, the episode jumps forward four weeks to paint the portrait of a family in disarray. Mia and Jo have grown despondent to say the least, although the latter is still continuing to search for Piper and investigating Benny’s background. She even calls someone at 3:10 AM without realizing the time, which is exhibit A for in-your-face over-dramatization. The Chief is also neglecting her job, but Chris the mensch, the best deputy of all times, is picking up the slack. But when it rains, it pours, so Jo learns from Brooks that he is being pulled from the case, effective immediately.

Ed and Alex, for their part, feel helpless watching their loved ones wither away emotionally, which produces a subtle-yet-inspiring narrative consisting of their efforts to be a part of the solution and how each succeeds in doing so in his own way by the end of the episode.

One evening, the TV at the house starts flickering shortly before the circuit breaker pops and the lights go out. The screen goes off, but not before displaying the same symbol that we saw back in “Pilot” on the same TV’s frazzled screen, as well as on the chip that Piper took out of her neck.

Jo takes it as a sign from Piper and investigates the power surge. The electrical company claims they have no recorded power surges for that time period. When Jo seeks Brooks’s help, he is not exactly buying the story even after she tells him about the symbol. His take is, “people sometimes see what they want to see.” He will nonetheless look into it, thanks to some humorous, verbal arm-bending by Jo. When I noted above the synergy between these two being one of this episode’s positives, this was one of the sequences in my mind.

As expected, Brooks gets results. It was not a power surge after all. The communications satellite received a signal that fried the transponder. Before the transponder died, it sent a message to Jo’s Satellite TV originating from Elk County, Pennsylvania……. or something like that. I found Chris’s “What?” reply quite fitting even to the shorter version of the above that Jo provided. The bottom line is, Jo and Brooks are flying to Pennsylvania in three hours.

Chris’s reaction to Jo designating him as the acting chief officer during her absence is priceless, as most of his reactions are to every unexpected news that his boss delivers. His first task involves going to the dock to respond to a call by Yousef (first appearance in “Camera Wheelbarrow Tiger Pillow”) who simultaneously reports a boat being docked in his slip and expresses disappointment in having to do so with Chris instead of Jo. As he walks away, a couple of men carry a crate into the ship, causing Chris’s keys attached to his belt to be pulled toward it by a strong magnetic force. He asks to see what is in the crate, but the men refuse his request, saying they are in a rush.

Chris’s curiosity is piqued and he calls Alex into his office to ask for help, except that Alex’s solution consists of boarding the boat to see it for themselves, in other words, breaking the law. Chris apprehensively agrees to the plan when Alex skillfully manipulates his feelings by reminding Chris that he is now the Chief, a position requiring him to make the tough decisions. If you are looking for an example of the concept “learning on the job,” observe Chris throughout “15 Years.”

Squeezed between these two main storylines (Alex-Chris and Jo-Brooks), is the C story with Ed and Mia back at the house. In an effort to uplift Mia, Ed joins in the search for Piper in old-school style. He wants Mia to record a message for Piper on a ham radio so that he can play it on all frequencies in a loop. Mia’s message is, “Piper, don’t be afraid. Mom is coming.” Some time later, the radio makes a screeching sound and a bunch of 0s and 1s appear on its display to form some type of binary code that Mia records on her phone’s camera.

In the meantime, Jo and Brooks are plowing ahead with great alacrity in Pennsylvania. As I noted before, the synergy between the two portrays a sound comradery, although it frequently gets distracted by one convenient plot device after another, bringing a new meaning to the expression “with great alacrity.”

Take the whole diner sequence filled with contrivances for example. As they are eating, Jo decides to show pictures of Piper and Benny to the server who, lo and behold, recognizes Benny from when she was at a gas station two nights ago. Lo and behold, the owner of the gas station named Charlie (Lucas Van Engen) also happens to be at the diner. Lo and behold, he gives suspiciously vague answers to a few pointed questions by Jo and Brooks before running away outside where a car slams into him. Lo and behold, he turns out to be an AI because his arms start glowing after the car strike. Just like that, Jo and Brooks went from having zero clue what to do in Elk County to jumping several steps ahead in their investigation and accomplished that feat in a matter of two minutes at one location! The scene ends with Charlie pushing the driver and escaping in the car.

Back at the hotel later, as Brooks is trying to wrap his head around what he saw, he warns Jo not to involve the FBI, saying that it would not end well for her or Piper. After learning that Charlie’s history only goes back 15 years, and noting that Splinter’s been active for 15 years, Jo puts two and two together and realizes that Benny’s also likely to be an AI. “How many more are there?” questions Jo, which opens the door to a bizarre scene where Jo decides they will run Piper’s exabyte disk on each other to see if they are also one because, as Jo notes, “could be anybody.”

This is a dragged-out scene that is meant to demonstrate – I think – some romantic connection between the two while each verifies if the other is a “robot.” The mood-mystery balance is off, the seemingly sensual touching of the arms comes across forced considering the task at hand, and nothing feels earned. Jo crooking her neck later, to check out Brooks from behind as he walks away, had more flirtatious vibe in one second than that whole scene had in its two-plus minutes of screen time.

Jo learns that the car Charlie drove was towed from a parking lot of an animal hospital. Jo and Brooks presume that he needed medical help and go to the location. They walk in and quickly (of course) find Charlie about to die on a table. He refuses to reveal Piper’s location, “even I wanted to, I can’t,” he murmurs before dying. Having noticed the incision in Charlie’s neck, Jo figures out that he must have been trying to take his chip out. She takes it out and puts in a container. Brooks, for his part, finds Charlie’s cell which shows his recent locations. The one location that Jo and Brooks do not recognize on the list is where they are heading next.

Once there, Jo quickly (of course) finds Benny. She holds him at gun point by an SUV, asking for Piper. After a few seconds, her gun disintegrates into pieces by itself and falls out of her hand. That is when Piper, along with Helen, joins Benny and asks Jo not to hurt him. She informs her that she needs to stay with them because they need her help. Despite the shocked Jo pleading with her to come home, Piper uses her powers to shut the garage-like door on her and drive away in the SUV with Helen and Benny. Yes, it’s confirmed. Piper has a full range of superpowers that she can now use at will.

During the above ordeal that resulted in nothing more than basically hitting the reset button on the search for Piper, the quirky duo of Alex and Chris stay busy breaking the law while providing a higher dosage of viewer-entertainment than the Jo-Brooks storyline could ever dream of doing in the process.

They board the boat in the dark and find the crate in which they discover a somewhat liquid-ish ball moving around inside a cube container (you can maybe come up with a better description). At that moment, a few guys board the boat. Chris and Alex manage to get off as it leaves the dock, but not before Chris leaves his phone on it, allowing him to track it down later.

It also makes room for a riotous sequence of classic Chris expressions, the first of which is the ‘proud look’ as he illustriously, and with a sly smile, points to the signal on the map on his computer screen and informs Alex that he left his phone on the boat to track its movement. An impressed Alex replies, “I’m going to back some of the things I said about you,” which causes Chris to now don the ‘confused look,’ another priceless expression. Dear Chris, don’t ever change, and dear Robert Bailey Jr., bravo to you, Sir!

Last-minute thoughts:

— Before leaving with Benny and Helen, Piper asks Jo to let Mia know that she is not scared, which means that Ed’s ham-radio idea worked, and she received Mia’s message. So, was she the one who sent the binary code? If so, what is its meaning?

— There is a scene early in the episode where a detective from the Bronx calls and asks Jo to confirm if a corpse matching Piper’s description that they recently found is Piper or not. Jo and Brooks look at the computer screen and Jo tells the detective that it is not Piper. The camera angles, the silence, the score, and the slow-burn acting leads me to believe that the writers intended for this scene to create some type of suspense. I felt none. Piper would obviously be useless to the show as a dead corpse.

— Benny comes across genuine when he tells Jo that he is truly sorry. I am still not sold on him being a “bad guy.” For more on this, see my review of “Where You Belong.”

— I believe there are three episodes left in the season. I presume, they will tackle larger questions such as the reason behind the AIs’ arrival/appearance 15 years ago, what their ultimate goal is, and Piper’s expected role in achieving that goal. I am also curious to see if some of the recurring characters like Helen and Agent Brooks will make it alive to the end of the season.

Until the next episode…

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

“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.
PS2: Follow Durg on Twitter and Facebook

“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…

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

“Mile Marker 14” – aired on November 5, 2019
Written by: Nick Parker
Directed by: Sydney Freeland
Grade: 4,5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Readers familiar with my reviews probably know by now that I am not a fan of eleventh-hour twists, a method excessively used in today’s landscape of TV dramas in my opinion, and too often for the simple purpose of jarring emotions. Maybe I am in the minority in thinking this way, but I believe that a show consisting of well-written episodes does not need to resort to closing each hour’s curtains with the so-called ‘big shocker’ in order to get viewers to tune in week after week. Much to my relief, Emergence has so far stayed away from this trend, using this method only when it serves a purpose much larger than the temporary whaaat effect and challenges the viewer to reconsider what has previously transpired while adding depth to a character or two.

“Mile Marker 14” is one such episode.

Consider Emily for instance. I have openly criticized the way her character was written in a couple of my reviews – for ex: “No Outlet” – and even began wondering when she would be written off because it seemed as if the writing room did not really know what to do with the character. Is she there for comedic purposes? Is she a convenient tech-whiz, only there to assist with the storyline dealing with catching Kindred? Is she a possible romance interest for Chris in the future? The ending of “Mile Marker 14” does not bring a definitive answer to any and every question, nor does it necessarily justify her goofy disposition from earlier outings. It does, however, put an end to her oddly peripheral presence in the show and establish her prominence in the overall arc.  

The stunning final few seconds of “Mile Marker 14” do more than just help Emily’s character gain a new perspective. A few quotes from earlier dialogues that seemed peculiar at the time make more sense on the second viewing (more on that below). The twist also links together the episode’s two main storylines (the family crisis and the search for Alan Wilkis) that seemed completely unrelated prior to the ending. Either could be labeled the A story. You could assign it to the one that carries the most far-reaching consequences or to the one that occupies more screen time than the other. In my opinion, and you may disagree, “Mile Marker 14” is an episode focusing first and foremost on family matters (or crisis, depending on your approach).

Ed informed Jo in last week’s “RDZ9021” that his cancer was back and that he did not intend to fight it this time. He is simply not interested in damaging his body and mind any further with chemotherapy and having others take care of him in the long term. He would rather go out on his own terms. As expected, Jo explores all avenues to make him change his mind and that includes enlisting Alex’s help. Unfortunately for Alex, it completely blows up in his face when Ed essentially tells him to mind his own business because that is what he had to do when Alex and Jo got divorced without much concern for Mia’s well-being although, he emphatically reminds Alex, “Mia did get hurt.”

Speaking of Mia, she is now Piper’s unofficial coach and makes her practice her superpowers. During one of their sessions at the neighborhood park that she is recording on her phone, Piper manages to make objects float in the air, but accidentally (I presume) sets one flying in Mia’s direction, striking her hand. They stop by Abby’s house to have her check the injury but Abby can immediately tell that the girls are hiding something. Mia’s story of falling to the ground and hitting a rock sounds like a giant fable and her not being in school does not make sense. Mia and Piper know they are busted when Abby tells them to stay until Alex arrives to pick them up.

Alex is not happy to say the least, especially considering that Mia missed school claiming to be sick, only to later go out with Piper to the park without telling anyone. He grounds them and confiscates Mia’s phone on which he discovers the clip of the earlier incident, setting off a major family crisis that leaves their unity severely harmed by the end of the hour.

It begins with Alex anxiously showing the clip to Ed and Jo, affirming that Piper must have superpowers, and adding that it must be why the bad guys are after her. Jo grabs the phone and deletes the clip. It dawns on Ed and Alex at that moment that Jo had known about Piper’s superpowers and not informed them. Things turn sour rather quickly from that point forward. A barrage of questions flow her way and her answers are anything but satisfactory. She can neither tell them much nor guarantee Mia’s – or anyone else’s – safety around Piper. To make matters worse, she asks them to “trust” her. Oh dear! I love you Jo, but “trust me” is literally the last thing to say to loved ones who just discovered that you have been lying to them and I cannot begin to tell you how ironic that sounds when you say it after getting caught betraying them.

Jo soon finds herself in the doghouse with everyone. Alex is deservedly angry and taking Mia back to his house. Consequently, Mia is angry for being separated from Piper who, for her part, is upstairs crying in her bed. Ed is upset at her because her action caused the family to split. Director Sydney Freeland’s closing shot of Jo is terrific here as we see her for the last time in the hour standing by the door after Alex and Mia left, as the camera zooms out and foregrounds her isolation.

The other major storyline centers on the chase for Alan Wilkis (Seth Barrish), the co-founder of Augur Industries, who was introduced by name only in the last episode.

The always-useful Chris has gotten hold of the report detailing the sailing-boat accident that left Wilkis dead years ago, except that his body was never found. Jo orders Chris to canvass the marina while she goes to meet the widow Maria Wilkis, played by Tamara Tunie – a familiar name if you are a fan of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Maria tells Jo that Kindred is a “fraud,” a “con man,” because “he doesn’t know the first thing about technology.” This seemingly contradicts Kindred’s image as the giant tech entrepreneur. It is the first of several hints that the episode drops to prepare the groundwork for the final revelation – Another one occurs, for example, when Piper says to Kindred that she likes Jo a lot because being with her feels like “home,” to which he replies, “maybe one day you will the same way about me.” The quote has a deeper meaning once we realize that Emily, not Kindred, was actually the one saying it.

Back at the precinct, Emily informs everyone that Wilkis dedicated his life to designing Piper’s AI but that “he despised it” by the end. He eventually eliminated the source code so that it could never be replicated. This is when the always-useful Chris enters the scene with a bombshell: Wilkis is alive! Chris followed the boat’s trail to North Carolina where it was spotted two weeks ago. Emily suggests using a clip of Piper dancing as a bait to draw Wilkis out. This whole exchange is well-written, with great attention to detail, and even more interesting to watch knowing that Emily had an agenda throughout each one of these conversations at the precinct. 

Upon Emily’s somewhat crass prompt, Jo asks Chris to leave the room during that dialogue. This bothers him enough to confront Jo later and ask her if he had done anything wrong to make her question her trust in him. You cannot help but cheer for the guy, and Robert Bailey Jr.’s layered performance as Chris the mensch truly shines in these types of scenes.

Jo agrees and decides to let him in on the secret, which brings us to the most hilarious exchange of the hour. She gently informs him that Piper is an AI. At first, Chris’s eyes wander around the room for two seconds. He contemplates for another second. He glances at the ceiling one last time, and he replies, in a rather flat tone, “Ok. I got it.” The way he delivers that reply, Jo’s ensuing expression of confusion to his off-the-wall response, followed by Chris’s parting shot, “Probably later, I’ll freak out and question the universe and my place in it,” could easily be placed in my personal list of Emergence‘s top-3 funniest scenes so far.

In the meantime, the clip of Piper dancing must have piqued Wilkis’s curiosity because a package arrives to the precinct containing instructions on how to contact him. He essentially sends Benny and Jo on a scavenger hunt (an entertaining one, I might add) during which they have to leave their phones and guns behind. After being rendered unconscious along the way, they wake up in the living room of Wilkis’s “very lovely bat cave,” Benny’s quote.

Wilkis seems puzzled because he cannot figure out who could have designed the disk that Jo brought along. He knows that it could not have been Kindred because he lacks the knowledge and skills to create artificial intelligence, only confirming what Emily and Maria already said. I confess to being as perplexed as Wilkis at that moment, having no clue about Emily. Wilkis advises Jo to destroy the disk because nothing could be more dangerous than a neural network allowing the AI to learn, evolve, and change her own programming at will. Jo rejects the idea, of course, not wishing to destroy Piper.

Meanwhile, Wilkis is willing to help Jo put Kindred away. He gives her a USB key that contains information on a test that he and Kindred conducted in 2011 on human subjects in Malawi, involving gene therapy and nanotechnology. They paid the participants but secretly knew that it would/could (not clear which) lead to their death, which is exactly what happened to 14 of them. Their families were paid to remain quiet and the government burnt the bodies. 

Kindred’s men arrive and following a run-of-the-mill action scene, Wilkis escapes into the night in his SUV after destroying his computers as Jo and Benny are saved by the arriving police cars, thanks to the always-useful Chris the mensch who had asked Emily to locate Jo’s fitness tracker and alerted the local police accordingly.

Back within the safe confines of the precinct, Jo and Benny watch Kindred getting arrested on TV. Case closed, Emily says goodbye to everyone and leaves, as I naively think see ya, won’t be missing ya’. With both storylines coming to some sort of conclusion – Jo alienated from everyone in the family and Kindred apprehended –, it’s time to tackle the ending twist.

While Piper is crying in bed after Alex and Mia leave, she gets pulled once again into virtual space to meet with Kindred. This time, Piper tells him that she knows he is not who he claims to be. My question is, how does she know? And why this time? What makes it that she can tell Kindred is someone else disguised as Kindred this time and could not do so in their previous meetings in the same space? The episode ignores the question.

Piper is onto something though, because Kindred suddenly transforms into Emily as the eerie score temporarily intensifies and the point-of-view camera angle passes from behind Piper, enhancing the surprise effect. Emily is now wearing a striking red dress and looking confident, almost in opposition to the image of the zany Emily that we have come to know so far. She smiles at Piper saying that now it’s their time “to have fun.” Piper smiling back at Emily as if to say “Yay, finally!” as the screen goes dark, reinforces yet again the possibility of a sinister side to her nature, in much the same way as the closing shots of “Pilot” and “2 MG CU BID” did.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Kindred is arrested on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Jo is unsatisfied with the charges but Benny quickly points out that Kindred faces 20 years, essentially the rest of his life.

– If it were not for that moment of seeing Kindred getting arrested on TV, one may almost forget that other law-enforcement agencies or media exist in the universe of Emergence. In the case of Kindred, and later Wilkis, should there not have already been all kinds of bureaus, not to mention the NYPD and the national media, investigating them and Augur Industries, snooping around Southold, with numerous individuals wanting to officially or unofficially interview Jo, Benny, the neighbors, townspeople, and others? Instead, we have so far had Jo and her small circle of acquaintances taking on Kindred and Augur Industries, with no distraction from law-enforcement agents or media members.

– I shamefully admit that “Action Jeeves” references completely passed over my head during the dialogue between Emily and Chris in front of the computer.

– The episode’s title refers to the marker indicated on the map left by Wilkis for Jo and Benny in the glove compartment of the car during their so-called scavenger hunt. 

– Ultra-brief but riotous exchange as Benny and Jo walk in the woods:
Benny: “So, why’d you and Alex split up?”
Jo: “Nope.”
Benny: “Very good.”

Until the next episode…

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