*This article contains spoilers*
Last week’s episode revealed the aftermath of the secret behind Rosa’s death, concluding with Liz creating a cure/poison to subdue the aliens’ powers and Isobel checking into a psychiatric ward until the blackouts stop. Needless to say, both of these events intersect in this week’s episode and it was not good.
The events were not a huge surprise to viewers as it was plainly stated in the 1×08 episode trailer: Liz’s cure/poison was injected into Isobel by Kyle and her cells began to decompose, meaning Isobel was dying. However, the surprise in that whole situation was that Isobel “influenced” Kyle to inject her. She felt that if she was “cured” then she could live a normal life. Things seemed hopeful until Isobel started coughing up blood.
Michael sought out Liz after Isobel began dying, telling her that she was punishing the wrong person. That was an interesting statement since Kyle was the one who injected Isobel per her influencing. Anyway, he tells Liz she needs to find a cure before she destroys Max.
Things were looking bleak while Liz “worked” on figuring out the antidote by channeling Rosa through wine and alternative music. Michael wasn’t impressed (I wouldn’t have been, either) and seemed to have given up…until Liz recognized his hidden genius.
The unlikely pair goes off into a bunker Michael keeps hidden because it is FULL of alien tech. Liz connects the dots and we find out that Michael is trying to rebuild the alien ship so that he, and Max and Isobel (we assume), can go back home – wherever home is. Aside from the alien tech and blueprints, Michael also has tubes filled with a liquid from the pods. The liquid, extraterrestrial in nature, of course, evaporates when it comes into contact with Earth’s atmosphere. This causes Liz to make another connection, this time between the pods and Isobel. Since the pods kept the alien trio in stasis for 50 years without aging them then it could be used to suspend Isobel in her current state of being sickly but alive while an antidote is created. The only problem? Nothing can penetrate it except silver. Luckily, our girl Liz wears tons of silver jewelry and knew how to melt it all down with science.
Max and Michael brought Isobel to the pod cave where Liz was waiting with a bowl full of melted silver. Liz took over, untying Isobel’s hospital gown and smearing the silver over her body. Once complete, Isobel was able to enter into the pod and go into stasis.
This was the major plot for the majority of the episode. Scenes between Alex Manes and his father as well as scenes between Max with his and Isobel’s adoptive mother broke up the narrative so that there was variation and progression of subplots. While they did well to separate the action, there was so much going on.
First of all, I don’t know how I liked this episode. Yes, it had a lot of action that moved the story forward but with the subplot of Alex confronting his dad and the sudden appearance of Mrs. Evans I think it was too much. This episode should have focused on Michael and Liz working together to find a cure for Isobel. Everything else could have waited until the episode after. I mean, Max is worried about Isobel but is also trying to figure out the origin of the symbol? Who does that when a family member is dying?
Despite too much happening in one episode, the redeeming quality came from Michael being in the spotlight for once. Ever the brooding loner with anger issues, Michael seemed to be just another supporting character whose sole purpose was to be angsty and violent. There’s more to the story this time with Michael actually being someone that cares a lot about his family and wants to do what he can in order to protect them. We get to see the calculating side of him, the hidden genius. While I love a good Bad Boy character, a bad boy genius is so much more alluring. I hope this Michael is here to stay.
The ending leaves us with a lot of questions for next week’s episode. Will Liz create an antidote? Who will finally tell us what the symbol/tattoo/drawing means? And the ultimate question everyone is waiting to be answered, will Liz and Max be able to overcome this obstacle and become closer? I know I want to know the answer to that question since there has been very little screen time romance between them since the first few episodes!