We open with an odd twist – it seems Mira, head of the
Sixers, is using giant dragon flies to spy on Terra Nova.
Boylan, the naughty barman, is being held by Taylor and
questioned about what he did for the Sixers, Boylan insisted that it was just
trade – medical supplies, never information. He continues to claim ignorance
about everything else – Taylor’s son, how Mira communicates with the future
etc. Taylor leaves the prison – and turns on a siren, preventing Boylan from
sleeping. He’s torturing him with sleep deprivation.
In a pleasant domestic scene, Elizabeth, Josh (who hasn’t
been eaten), Maddie and Zoe are preparing for the harvest festival – the day
they use to celebrate Taylor coming through the portal. They even have a
Harvest Play in which Zoe has won the leading role as Taylor himself (almost
like kids playing a nativity – yeaaa).
Josh, in a move that makes me not want to kill him for
once, asks his dad to check on Boylan, since no-one has seen him since Taylor
took him for interrogation (loyal lackey Jim disapproves of not using the
Supreme Leader’s full title and further objects to the word “interrogate” don’t
be silly, he’s just being questioned! Alone, without any oversight. That’s
fiiiiine! Someone better start challenging this dictatorship, I’m running out
of sarcasm). Jim agrees after making it clear that rule breaking just isn’t
allowed (well, except by him. He’s special).
Taylor takes Jim to see Boylan where we find him not only
sleep deprived but also zonked by the drugs Taylor gave him (Jim is concerned
that Taylor may have given him a little too much – not the drugging, just the
EXCESS drugging, you understand). Jim points out that Boylan did actually save
Taylor’s life once – but Taylor thinks it’s all good, after all, even if he isn’t
the spy he may give the real spy false confidence by holding Boylan. And he
doesn’t need any silly grounds to hold people! Drugged and confused, Boylan
babbles something about a secret buried under the pilgrim tree, something that
will make it “all over for Taylor.”
The Pilgrim’s Tree is apparently the tree that Supreme
Leader Taylor lived in when he first arrived (as such gets a special revered
name – which is totally not creepy and not trying to form his own cult, honest).
Jim, being the only person allowed to question the Supreme Leader, decides to
go to this tree (apparently at night and beyond the fence, which are big
no-nos) and, laughably start digging. This tree is huge – as in Redwood huge –
and Jim just takes a spade and starts digging at some random point around its
trunk. He gets lucky (surprise surprise) and unearths… a skull! (Dramatic music
time!)
Jim takes the full skeleton back to Elizabeth to examine
who says it’s a middle aged man with an arm missing at the elbow (though she
doesn’t know if it was done before or after death or whether it was animal
activity. It has to be said, she’s not the most insightful of pathologists).
She thinks he’s been dead for 4-6 years and he may have been shot – there’s a
hole in one rib. He asks Elizabeth to do more investigating – without telling
Taylor.
Jim tries to get more out of Boylan but Taylor hovering
around makes it difficult and Jim has to make excuses. And at the
Worship-the-Supreme-Leader play with the kids, one of the soldiers smacks Mira’s
spy-dragonfly and Maddy notices it has a microchip on its leg. Taking the chip
to Malcolm and Taylor they realise the Sixers and their spy are using the
dragon fly as a kind of carrier pigeon.
Meanwhile a Terra Nova patrol is ambushed by Mira and the
Sixers. They injured soldiers return to upset Taylor, especially as Washington
points out that she put together the team after Taylor locked up Boylan – he can’t
have leaked the information but Mira clearly knew all the details of the
patrol. Taylor agrees to let Boylan go (don’t mind the torture and drugging,
bygones!)
Elizabeth continues her investigate the dead man and
pulls up a mystery – not only is his DNA not logged in any pilgrimage, but the
special molecular imprinting time travel causes shows he arrived between the
second and third pilgrimages – when pilgrimages are supposed to be the only way
to travel back in time.
Jim goes to see the newly released Boylan in his
destroyed bar to question him about the body. After threatening him with a
claim that he confessed to killing the man, Boylan tells Jim that he helped
Taylor bury the body 5 years ago. He came across Taylor standing over the body
when Boylan, then in the military, was on patrol. Taylor blame it on his son,
Lucas, and that’s how the man got through the portal – it’s also the last time
he saw Lucas Taylor.
To complicate matters, Malcom is curious about this
autopsy going on in his lab and despite Elizabeth’s angry protestations (what
business is it of yours that I’m poking random corpses in your lab!? Honestly,
you’re so nosy!) he tells Taylor. Jim
passes off learning about the body as an anonymous note.
Jim and Elizabeth worry about how they can investigate if
Taylor suspects them but they’re interrupted by an incredibly ironic speech about
justice and freedom by Zoe in her role as Taylor in the upcoming
praise-the-supreme-leader-cult play which makes him all thoughtful.
Malcolm, meanwhile has identified that the carrier-dragon
fly tracks sounds and he has healed the little bug and put a tracking chip on
it. They – Taylor, Malcolm, Washington and Reynolds (who was in the ambush
earlier) can then chase it to the spy while everyone else is busy at the
Taylor-Worship Festival. But at the festival, Elizabeth and Jim notice that the
kid playing General Philbrick – the man who sent Taylor over – only had one arm
and theorise he could be the body. Which is when the carrier dragon fly enters
the Shannon house – and Taylor has Jim arrested as the Sixer spy.
In prison Taylor makes it clear he thinks there could be
a natural explanation for the dragonfly going to the Shannon house – if Jim
co-operates. Jim interprets that as “drop the case and you go free” and
refuses. He asks Taylor why he killed General Philbrick and Taylor says if he
didn’t, the general would have killed him.
Time for some exposition. The general had been sent by
the same people who sent the Sixers, people who didn’t view Terra Nova as a
second chance but as another source of resources. His son, Lucas, arrived on
the Second Pilgrimage and was working on a way to make the portal go both ways
so the resources can be exploited. Taylor destroyed his work and Lucas hated
him forever since then. Lucas left and summoned the General through the portal
to relieve Taylor of his command – he refused and killed the general in
self-defence and banished his son for being a traitor against Terra Nova
(meaning him, the Supreme Leader, of course).
The writing on the rocks we’ve been seeing has been Lucas
writing his calculations for Taylor to see, taunting him. And Taylor has kept
the whole thing secret (including the body) for the people of Terra Nova’s own
good – as decided by him, of course. Having told his dramatic story and how Taylor
has to stand alone for the good of all (hey saviour and martyr complex as
well!) And of course Jim is determined to fight at Taylor’s side (see, he’s an
amazing cop, someone admits to killing someone and says it’s self-defence? Good
enough for Jim!)
Taylor makes up an excuse for Washington, Elizabeth and
Malcolm. Malcolm finds it highly doubtful and accuses Taylor of planting the
emitter in Jim’s house, Taylor all but admits it and tells him to go enjoy the
party. Jim explains everything to Elizabeth
Everyone gets to enjoying the festival and Taylor makes a
big “we’re all in this together” (he misses off the “or else” there) speech and
everyone cheers the Supreme Leader as he basks in the glow of the fireworks –
which are watched, at a distance, by Lucas.
Ok… so we have Commander Taylor, founder of the colony.
We’ve seen before how they have no justice system at all – people are banished
(effectively killed) on his say so alone and he has no democracy nor any real administration beyond his
commands and his servants. He now engages in torture of prisoners (and
arbitrary arrest because he, of course, has no justice system). And to top it all
off they have a Terra Nova wide holiday in his honour… Why do they even call it Harvest Festival? Why
not just call it “Supreme Leader Taylor Day”? They even have a fake nativity
with a kid playing Taylor as the lead!
The fact the Sixers are equally unpleasant doesn’t make
Taylor any palatable. On one side you’ve got corporate marauders seeking to
strip the world of its resources, on the other you have a dictatorship with no
pretence of justice, democracy or freedom and a dictator who is happy to kill,
hide bodies, throw people out to the dinosaurs and torture on his say-so alone
and is now trying to build his own cult of personality. And Jim’s there to be a
loyal acolyte? Ugh. Let dinosaurs eat the lot of them.
