Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Alphas Season Two Episode Five: Gaslight

This episode begins with a Adam identifying the body of his sister Maggie in the morgue.  As the morgue tech escorts him out, the lights go wonky and a slight clearly female groan can be heard.  When the Adam asks about this, the morgue tech grabs the Adam's arm and says that they have to get back to the office, while in the  morgue two men stand over Maggie's body.  Maggie begins to call out for him and the morgue techs attempt to hold Adam back.  Adam uses what I assume to be his alpha abilities to crawl up the wall and across the ceiling to get to his sister, but before he can save her, she is dragged away.  As Adam is being forced from the room, we get another shot of Maggie and this time she appears to be well and truly dead.

Back at the office, Nina enters and sees Gary asleep on the couch.  Rosen explains by saying that "Gary is working through some issues."  It seems that Rosen felt it would be better for Nina to get her bearings with no one else around. Nina quickly asserts that she is ready to get back to work and to stop pushing but Rosen has other plans.  It seems that they have traced Stanton Parish's family fortune to a charity which is making donations to a senator. Rosen wants Nina to have a little chat with the senator. It seems for Rosen that Nina's issue isn't the fact that she pushes people but that she isn't doing it at his command.  Can there be anymore doubt that there is nothing moral about this man?  Keep in mind that Nina just tried to kill herself but for Rosen that is unimportant because he has his sights on bringing and end to Parish's efforts.

The next day, Hicks is skyping with his son Tyler and attempting to teach him how to throw a baseball.  He is excited that Tyler will be visiting next week, until Hicks is informed that the visit is cancelled.  His ex wife gets on the line and tells Hicks of their plans to go to San Fransico instead. Hicks offers to travel to Nevada but his ex says, "I'll just let you know when it's a good time."  Clearly she plans to break the relationship between Hicks and his son.  His ex ends the conversation and Bill appears to offer Hicks is sympathies. Because Cameron spent quite a few years drunk, he feels that he is not in a position to make any demands on them.  

Hicks notices that Bill has a pretty massive bruise over his eyebrow, but Bill says that it is a present from his wife.  Hicks doesn't believe it for one moment and this forces Bill to admit that he regularly attends the fight club. 

Nina is busy helping Gary get read to attend a tomb stone unveiling for Anna. Gary is not at all happy to be wearing a tie and says that they remind him of nooses, but Nina tells him that this is what men wear to such events.  Gary says that Dr. Rosen believes that this will be cathartic but he doesn't believe he will find closure from words written on a stone. Gary is further upset that the words on the stone aren't even Anna's words. 

When he looks up, Gary sees Rachel standing in the doorway and comments that he is wearing the suit that she bought for him.  Rachel tells him that he looks great and admits that she didn't buy the suit.  Gary goes on to say that Rachel is a criminal but not in jail.  Nina seconds this and adds that Dr. Rosen says that the alphas need her but that Rachel is not part of her team.  When Rachel tries to apologise Nina refuses to listen.  I am really glad that they have included some repercussions for Rachel's actions because what she did to Nina was assault. 

The tape of Adam has been revealed and Rosen, Bill and Hicks head off to investigate.  On their way out, they run into Kat who is holding a pillow.  It seems that Rosen plans on running a sleep study on her for the purposes of recovering her memory. 

In the bathroom of a hotel, Nina confronts the senator and asks her what she did in return for the financing from Stanton's charity, but the senator is unable to tell her because her memory has been erased. 

Rosen goes to see Adam and learns that Maggie was doing drugs before she died.  He is worried that Adam's feelings are strong and suggests sending him to a clinic where he can get the support that he needs to deal with his grief. Rosen tells him that Bill and Cameron will escort him to the clinic as soon as his paperwork is completed.  Rosen then heads downstairs and hands Hicks and Bill Adam's paperwork before leaving because he has some business to attend to. 

As Adam is headed downstairs in the elevator the lights flicker and he hears his sister's voice begging him for help again. Adam attacks the hospital orderly who is with him saying that he has to get out of there.  When the elevator opens on the ground door, the orderly is lying on the ground with blood streaming out of his head. When Hicks looks up, he sees Adam crawling up the elevator shaft. 


At Anna's memorial, the rabbi begins to talk about how Anna will live on their hearts and this causes Gary to point out that she won't and that this is the problem.  He repeatedly says that Anna is dead, was not peaceful, and was in fact a rebel. Rachel struggles, but she finally gets Gary to leave. They head to the hospital, where Hicks immediately waves something in Rachel's face, which causes her to tell him that she is not a dog.  Bill backs this up and Rachel says that she hears something.  Rachel, Bill and Hicks take off after Adam and Hicks instructs Gary to look through the hospital camera's, which causes Gary to tell him that he is not a dog, thus mirroring Rachel's earlier complaint. 

Rachel hears Adam saying repeatedly, "I'm trapped, please help me."  Bill says that this freak out isn't the first and that equipment has not been working properly and people have been seeing things out of the corner of their eyes. Downstairs, Gary is going through the signal getting nothing but snow and is approached by Anna of all people. He tells her that she cannot be there because she is dead and that Anna doesn't talk.  Gary approaches a custodian and asks if he sees anyone there and as I suspected, Anna is not really there.  Anna responds by reminding Gary that he sees things all of the time that people cannot, but Gary says that he sees signals and doesn't hallucinate. 

At the office, Rachel reports that she saw the senator who couldn't tell her anything. Rosen responds "that our memories are often hidden in many places throughout our brain - hidden just out of reach." Rosen suggests that if the information is there that Rachel might be able to retrieve it.  Rachel points out that she already tried pushing the senator but Rosen says that this is more of a pull instead of a push. When Rachel responds that she has never done anything like this, Rosen uses guilt and shame and points out that Rachel has done a lot of things recently which are without precedent. Of course, Rosen says he wouldn't ask her to do something that makes her uncomfortable. Uh huh, could he be anymore manipulative and self serving? Nina says that if the senator has part of Parish's agenda in her head that they need to move on it now. 

Rosen realises that they need to test and see if Rachel can really pull a repressed memory and walks Nina into his office where Kat is sleeping. Rosen hooks Kat up to sensors and says that he wants to see if Nina can help pull some memories that her brain has stored away.  I love how he tried to make this seem like this is all about helping Kat, when she is little more than an experiment. Kat grabs Nina's hand and then Nina starts asking Kat about her 16th birthday. Kat starts to reveal her memories and Rosen pushes Nina to get Kat to personalize her memories. Kat remembers a woman and all of sudden her face and Nina's face contorts in pain.  Rosen tells Nina that she can indeed pull memories and suggest that they leave now.  On the way out of the door, Rosen thanks Kat for her participation.  

Back at the hospital, Gary follows Anna up a flight of stairs and she keeps breaking down into a black vapour and then reappearing again. Rachel walks into a room where she is certain that Adam is and tells Bill who leaves to get Hicks.  The moment Bill leaves the room Adam jumps from the ceiling and attacks Rachel.  When Bill and Hicks returns to find Rachel gone, they decide that weird stuff is going on and call on Rosen who says that he will be there as soon as he can.

At the airport, Nina and Rosen have tracked down the senator.  Nina seems to have a wound on her hand from Kat which Rosen notices.  Nina says that Kat spent a lot of time in a hospital and someone held her hand.  Rosen questions if he is asking too much of Nina.  The fact that he even had to ask should have suggested he most certainly had already gone way over the line. When they do finally sit down with the senator, they learn about medical testing that happened in August, but are unable to get more because they are interrupted by the senator's staff.

At the hospital things continue to escalate.  Hicks hears his son calling for help and sees a gurney with a dead body being pushed.  Rachel wakes to find herself handcuffed to a table by Adam, who has plans of draining her blood.  When he turns his head, Rachel frees herself and takes off running. Rachel disappears from an elevator and the words "help me I'm drowning are carved to the walls." Adam thinks that he sees his sister in a sink and drowns himself.

Apparently, there is some sort of sound being emitted throughout the hospital. Rosen picks up that all of the Alphas are acting on what they perceive to be a cry for help. Upstairs, Bill ends up in a fight against himself and Nina jumps into a pool to save Rachel. Going through hospital records, Gary discovers a boy who is brain dead, who very nearly drowned.  Apparently, this boy's parents plan to donate his organs shortly and Rosen suggests that the boy is actually calling out for help. 

Gary realizes that if the boy wakes up that he will lose Anna, so he rushes to the room and locks himself in before Rosen can get there.  Rosen tries to get him to open the door because Hicks, Cameron and Rachel are in grave danger but Gary doesn't relent, until Anna says that the neuro diverse need to stick together and that the boy is one of them.  As soon as the boy wakes up, all of the Alphas return to normal.  

In the aftermath, Hicks decides to go and visit his son, Rachel and Nina don't exactly make peace but clearly they are no longer as hostile and Rosen discovers that the unconscious alpha had a machine used upon him. It turns out that these machines are from Stanton Parish's charity and they have been sent across the U.S.  Alone in his room, Gary pulls up a signal and it says, "Anna lives and the revolution is coming"