An awful lot is becoming crystal clear for Will Bowman. He knows exactly who Eric Broussard is — i.e., a former government hitman turned mercenary turned Resistance trooper — and at last connects the dots that Broussard and Katie are in cahoots. Good thing he caught a glimpse of Broussard’s Nostromo paperback while scouring Eric’s mother’s house for clues. It was the same edition Katie kept among artifacts that belonged to (and reminded her of) Charlie. Turns out Katie and Broussard had been using Nostromo’s text as a way to encrypt messages. Ironically, on this day, Katie used an old-fashioned payphone to alert her Resistance chum that hubby was on his way to Hancock Park with a battering ram and a positive ID on the Authority’s most-wanted man. So much for always putting family first.
Let’s be fair to Mrs. Bowman, though. She made a concerted effort to reach out to Gracie, offering a nice jaunt to the park. Too bad Gracie’s more interested in making cutouts with her creepy tutor, Lindsey. If only mom knew that those cutouts would help illustrate a lesson about some Jesus-like savior idolized by pastor Oliver’s (Jeremiah Birkett) newfangled Greatest Day cult. Moreover, if only she knew that Gracie — like all the children of Los Angeles, and maybe of the world — is going to be instrumental after this resurrected prophet magically beams them up to awesomeness. Amazing how people respond to the inexplicable with inexplicableness.
And hey, not only is youth-leader Lindsey present and resplendent at Oliver’s sermon, but Adrian Pasdar is back as Nolan Burgess. Or as Oliver prefers, “Brother Nolan Burgess,” which is fitting given his figurehead role in what folks refer to as the “Political Ministry.” It’s hard to tell if Burgess is helping establish a legitimate recruitment effort on behalf of Earth’s new Hosts, or if he’s merely a canny bureaucrat pandering to a zealous potential constituency.
There’s quite a bit going on in “Broussard,” perhaps Colony’s busiest episode to date. But some of what we can positively ascertain, both about and via this week’s title character, is the following: Broussard tried to fake his own death to throw Will off his scent and failed; Broussard was the son of a fireman who deserted him as a boy (thank you, helpful monologue), but really adored his mother, Harriet, who died during the Arrival; Broussard contradicts his better judgment and trusts Katie, who rewards that trust, while they and Rachel have a lot of conversations about how everyone should not be trusted. Phew. Oh, and he’s very handy with a set of tools. (Home Depot paper trails get ’em every time.)
Whether Katie really cares about her marriage more than toppling the Resistance and asserting a mother’s will to find her son is in the eye of the beholder. We know Katie’s lived a vagabond life before the Arrival, never staying in one place for too long. She was, best we can decipher, a bit of a free spirit. So it’s not shocking that she’d get antsy around Will’s by-the-book routine. As much as risking one’s own life to infiltrate a tyrannical government and subvert it from the inside can be deemed conventional, anyway. In fairness, it’s hard to fathom how Will can maintain his composure after Snyder shares a recent snapshot of Charlie with the Bowmans. Snyder must know it’s going to eat both Will and Katie up and potentially create conflict between them. Maybe that’s the idea: Taunt them with hope until they reveal whether they’re assets or threats. It’s too bad there wasn’t a helpful monologue for that part.
Enter Quayle, amateur historian and unsolicited orator extraordinaire, who regales Broussard with the tragic tale of the Gauls: They came oh-so-close to toppling Caesar until a pang of conscience hindered their ultimate goal. “The graveyards of history are littered with merciful men,” Quayle says, sounding that much more convincing on account of his nifty beret. He’s not wrong. Had Broussard taken Katie out in Griffith Park, she would have never spilled the beans on his whereabouts to Will and jeopardized his life, even if she ultimately swoops in for the 11th-hour save. Alas, humaneness can be seductive in a time of roguish chaos. Despite their adversarial situation, both Broussard and Will have pesky desires for honest connection while meting out their tactical responsibility.
Wouldn’t life be simpler if, like Nolan’s wife/glorified art thief Charlotte, these men craved little more than some reverse cuckolding to break up the day? Maddie had to know that Mrs. Burgess’s largesse was too good to be true. But hey, the rules are simple: Go to the bone zone with Nolan without me present, and you can kiss your cushy job and son’s precious insulin goodbye. And worse yet, all your spoils will go to that snooty underling Brett. (Hey, Arshad Aslam!) Maddie warns Nolan he better have a chit-chat with his wife or risk exposure of her double-dealings, thus tarnishing his reputation with the power elite. (What she has on Charlotte is still a bit fuzzy, but it’s something about bootlegging Basquiats or some such chicanery.) Nolan has a better idea: They kick Charlotte to the curb so Maddie can be his top gal. Wonder how she’d feel about that proposition if she knew about his relationship with the Greatest Day, never mind their aspirations to brainwash and imperil her niece. As stated earlier — phew. And to invoke Mrs. Burgess, three is indeed the magic number, as that’s how many episodes are left in season one. It’s almost time to find out if there really are aliens out there, or if fear of the unknown manifests itself into something even more horrific.
Apart From All That:
- I’d trust Jennifer with my romantic future.
- And oh, that Kathleen Rose Perkins laugh. When’s Episodes coming back?
- Dream fake-outs: Love or hate?
- I don’t know who still has C4, but I know I have this.
- Not the meatiest part for Carl Weathers, eh?
- Hillhaven: Home of Ingrid Bergman, Proxy Snyder and … Brett Ratner?
- Hello again, Deftones cops.
