What They Say:
Strange Brew – Tom grows suspicious of his surroundings while Weaver and Pope clash over how to handle the suspected mole.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One of the tricks any show can employ when you get down to it is the “is it all a dream” gimmicks. While they can be written off to a certain degree because you know that it’s not actually true and is just a way to do something with the story they couldn’t do otherwise, there are some good things that can be done. Getting a prologue sequence here where we see Tom, having just been shot and captured by the aliens, going through some time with his former wife at Christmas Time in their home is definitely worth having. We’ve seen little about his wife for the most part and while there’s been plenty of nods towards her and his relationship with her as well as the boys, getting a look at all of them in this happy dream time is definitely welcome. Just having Tom without a scraggly beard and clean hair definitely alters your view of him compared to the scrawny approach that we’ve seen for so long.
Naturally, the more this happy life goes on, the more we see different aspects of his true life coming into play as people show up in different roles in this imaginary world that’s being foisted on him. Some of it is certainly amusing as roles change up a bit here and there, especially when you see Pope in an academic role that truly belies what we know of him in the real world and his own history. These kinds of angles are well played as it moves on and we see the actors and characters through some new lights, but it’s also just fun to see Tom Mason as an actual professor in his field here, confident and competent with what he does. But the small nudges trying to get into his world are fun to watch, especially when his mind has Anne trying to call him or others with cardboard signs trying to get him to realize the end of the world is here.
As the accusations start to fly when it comes to Anne, with her trying to reach him and her husband accusing him of an affair, it starts spilling into other aspects of his life. Tom’s just gobsmacked by it all and is trying to figure it all out since he knows he’s not having an affair, but all these things keep hitting him. With texts piling up and even his son questioning him on it, it’s one of those dangerous moments where his life feels like it’s spiraling out of control. When he finally meets Anne, some of things start to come together as there are four cities that come up repeatedly about the two of them and where they go together, which reinforces the way that he’s being manipulate and interrogated without truly understanding it to find out more of what the resistance is up to and what some of their plans are. But it’s completely out of his mind at this point as he simply tries to deal with the strangeness of the situation.
When it finally gets to be too much, it shifts back into the real world and we see how Karen has been manipulating him in order to find out which tower it is that the resistance intends to attack. With some information gleaned through various means so far, they have some of the details but still need more, hence trying a different approach at working Tom over. This actually gets to be amusing because we see the game within a game aspect of it and you have to appreciate the way that Tom has to start distrusting more and more of what he really sees until there’s a certain sense of trueness about it all. And when he does hit that, dealing with Karen once again, all he can do is laugh. Which is definitely the right emotion after the roller coaster that he gets put through.
While this goes on, we do get some material back in Charleston as the investigation into the death of the President has come up with dead ends since everyone seemingly has an alibi. As we saw before, there’s some “viral” manipulation going on that allows the enemy to use people to achieve their goals and that keeps them a step ahead. This also puts an unlikely alliance into play as both Weaver and Pope come to the conclusion, at different times and speeds, that since Tom is out of the picture now, they have to really step up and figure out what’s going on and who is truly behind it, not trusting anyone else at this phase. Which is easy for Pope, but Weaver has come to trust a number of people since the early days of the 2nd Mass and putting up that layer of distrust will not be easy. It also plays into some other interesting material, especially since if the two of them do take control, with Weaver out in front of it all, that changes the nature of how Charleston is run – again – and could reduce a lot of the faith many have in the government. All under the trappings of the enemy getting ready to do some very nasty things with their towers.
In Summary:
While the episode ends rather quietly as it works through some of the emotional material that was brought to the surface for Tom as he’s able to let go of things with his long, lost wife, the majority of the episode is actually a lot of fun and interesting to watch. The whole dream/manipulation angle worked well since it wasn’t relegated to just a brief bit at the beginning but rather something that was worked over a few times with some mild mental screwing going on with Tom that left him unsure of what was real and what wasn’t as Karen worked the situation. Getting to see a normal, happy family life for Tom allows you to see what was lost and appreciate the way that he’s kept it together and focused, but it was also just fun to see a number of the characters in “normal” every day life mode in a way, something that series has avoided a lot of as it could obviously employ flashbacks but doesn’t. These glimpses work well and helped to flesh out Tom more than he really has been in the series so far.
Grade: B-
