Sanctuary 4x10 "Acolyte" recap/review
Yay, now I'm only three episodes behind on my Sanctuary reviews! I'm considering whether or not I should blend 4x12 and 4x13 into a single review. They aired separately, but it's hard for me to think of one without the other. They really should have been a two hour block. That way I'd only have two left to write! But I'll probably split them up. They had different directors, so that would make things awkward in the crediting department.
Hm. We will cross that bridge when we get to it! For now, Acolyte! Recap, review. I still think that's a hard word to type. Acolyte. It's awkward. ~g~
"Acolyte"
04.10
Written by: Alan McCullough
Directed by: Lee Wilson
US Airdate: December 9, 2011
In short: Kate returns with news about a big Hollow Earth insurgent terror attack, and Helen must face the possibility that one of her closest friends is a traitor.
Recommended: Yes, sort of
"For thousands of years, the surface dwellers have kept us down. We suffer for their tyranny. Bear the scars of their brutality. I myself have been their prisoner for over fifty years. But the time of the uprising is at hand. From this day forward the occupiers shall be consumed by fire and drowned in blood. We will die, so that others may live. From below, we rise."
- Biggie's suicide video
The episode begins with a BIG ACTION MOMENT and then skips back to three days earlier. I hate that trope. It's like skipping to page 100 of a book, reading two pages, and then going back to fill in the blanks. I'll forgive them this time for a reason I'll get to later, but for now, I'll just skip to the real beginning of the episode.
Helen and Will are discussing a certain pair of Sanctuary residents who have an unusual dietary requirement: they slather the food on each other and then lick it off. That would be bad enough, but apparently they require an audience. She's tried every trick under the sun, but there's no substitute for a living, breathing voyeur. Biggie isn't available to take the bullet because he's halfway to Hollow Earth (picking up that thread from the last episode), but Will is spared by a call from Declan on the priority channel.
The call is a surprise contact by Kate, who has laboriously climbed out of the tunnels to relay some important information. A group of Abnormals had arrived back in Hollow Earth, and one of them came to her about a terrorist attack being planned on the surface. Fanatical Abnormals want to start an all-out war between Abnormals and humans, but they don't know the target. Her info comes from a man named Sephis, who said he heard it from a fellow Abnormal named Oren while they were out drinking. Will heads to London to check things out, and Henry scours their information on the Hollow Earth insurgents for any word of the imminent attack.
Will arrives to find that Kate and Declan have just found Oren, and he's waiting in an isolation room. Will goes right into the interrogation to see what he can find out about the attack. He refuses to talk, and says they're only making him offers to go home because they're afraid. In his mind, that means their tactics are already working. The insurgents believe they have an equal right to the surface and will get their part of it by any means necessary.
Back home, Henry is frustrated by roadblocks thrown up in his way. They've been cut out of all the big databases and he can't get in anywhere. There are some vague intelligence dispatches, but nothing helpful. Helen tells him to keep looking, and he suggests a Japanese IAS and asks her for help translating. So that confirms Helen definitely speaks Japanese. Before she leaves, Henry expresses concern that they haven't heard from Biggie yet. Helen is sure he's just between checkpoints since he can't exactly travel incognito, but Henry is skeptical.
Big Brother Declan uses CCTV footage to find a building Sephis frequented and figures that's where the terrorist group meets. They raid the warehouse and discover a bunch of still-fresh bodies and the places is trashed. Helen's idea is that the rebels killed their own people to prevent potential information leaks. Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead, and all that. Unfortunately, Helen also says the deaths only strengthen the theory of an imminent attack.
Kate finds a piece of a shipping document stuck on a dead man's shoe. The only letters on it are SBOA. Henry suggests running it through an algorithm, but Helen's brain works faster than that: she realizes it must be Lisbon (the Portuguese spell it Lisboa), and predicts they'll find a second cell there and tells Henry to do a search for anything about that country.
Back at the London Sanctuary, Kate and Will have a nice little heart-to-heart. Will invites her back, but Kate is too excited about being on the forefront of a new world being created. She feels like a pioneer, and the future is all that matters. Considering her past and the things she's done, it's not surprising she's enamored with the idea of a clean slate. It's also worth noting that this may be the first episode where Kate isn't wearing her fingerless gloves. She's very relaxed, calm, and bright; she's finally put some of her demons to rest. Will also notices that she's wearing a new bracelet, but she quickly goes back on-topic when he mentions Garris.
Henry admits that he's hacked into SIS, figuring they would know about anything big happening in Lisbon.
HELEN: "SIS...?"
HENRY: "Portuguese Security Intelligence Service. It's a lame acronym, I know, especially when you have a P, an I and two S's to work with."
HELEN: "Onward."
HENRY: "Anyway..."
He found encrypted travel itineraries that are decoded into a series of names. Included at the top of the list is Greg Addison, the douche who tried to take over the Sanctuary way back in *Untouchable. Helen recognizes two of the other names - Hagan Kiersted and Mashita Narumi - as people who deal with Abnormals. She figures they're all going to Lisbon for a summit to consolidate their activities under the banner of SCIU (Tesla is not on the list, for reasons that will become obvious later on in other episodes). Helen says they have to warn Addison. She may not agree with him, but she won't see him become a victim.
Will and Kate go back to Sephis and set him free. They claim it's obvious he won't help them, plus it's too dangerous keeping him at the Sanctuary after all his friends were killed. They show him pictures of the dead members of his cell to prove that he's not betraying them anymore by talking. Sephis agrees to help them in exchange for protection, but he claims not to know anything. Will mentioned Lisbon, and Sephis says they sent detonators to another cell, and he gives them the address.
Helen arrives at Addison's office in a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Addison hears his security officers hitting the floor and walks out to see what the ruckus is. It's Helen Magnus, in high heels and a skirt, casually tucking her hair behind her ear. The bodies of his people are scattered on the floor at her feet. She smiles politely at Addison.
HELEN: "Sorry. But I did warn them it was urgent that I see you."
Addison invites her in, and she reveals she knows about the SCIU summit. Addison is unmoved in the extreme. She warns him about the attack, which Addison hears with less concern than if she'd said the air conditioning in Conference Room B is a little hit-and-miss. She refuses to tell him where she got her information, and he admits he's surprised she's there at all because he thought the Sanctuary was behind it. Helen is shocked at the accusation and denies it.
When he realizes she really doesn't know what he's talking about, so he shows her his proof: photographs of the Big Guy at meetings with several Hollow Earth terrorists, looking very at ease and welcome.
ADDISON: "According to my latest intel, your Sasquatch is their new leader."
She refuses to believe it, citing his loyalty for the last fifty years. You don't need to go back that far. I've only known Biggie since the show premiered four years ago and this was completely and utterly out of nowhere. There was an obvious fish scent in the air, but she can't explain his actions. Addison tells her that, if he's innocent, she should bring him in for questioning. Helen is forced to admit she doesn't know where he is.
In addition to the photos, Addison has "a room full of recordings" of Biggie leading meetings. Really? A room full of recordings? How do you fill a room with recordings? The entire Beatles' catalogue wouldn't fill a room even if they were on eight-track. Sorry. I'm lashing out. Save Biggie! Addison admits her belief isn't his goal; he just wants her to know how serious the situation is.
ADDISON: "Your tall, hairy friend here is an enemy target. I am advising you to stay well out of my way. If you don't, I will come after you, too."
Helen reveals the news to Will, who also refuses to believe it (Team!Save Biggie). Will cites how upset the Big Guy got when the insurgents first showed up, and it doesn't make sense that he would join them now. Helen gives Henry the task of figuring out what's happening, and she warns Will to be on the lookout for Biggie and SCIU.
Will, Kate and Declan are at the Lisbon address Sephis' cell sent the detonators. They raid the place and, after the requisite shootout, they question the terrorists and come up empty. Will looks at their computers and finds that the insurgents have a buttload of information about the summit. It's too much information, and too precise, and he realizes it was all a decoy to fool the terrorists into attacking the wrong place.
Back home, Henry reveals that he changed the security codes to keep Biggie out. He went over Addison's pictures for evidence they had been doctored, but they were legit. As a last resort, he searched Biggie's room and found a flash drive. Helen is shocked at the invasion, and Henry looks disappointed in himself. Ryan Robbins tears it up in this scene. The show has never explicitly said that Biggie and Henry see themselves as brothers. They don't have to, because it's all over Henry's face. In this, and in *Veritas, he makes their relationship explicitly clear. He deserves kudos for making it feel so visceral.
Helen forces herself to watch the flash drive, and Amanda Tapping pulls out some fantastic reactionary acting as well as Helen watches her dear friend of fifty years declare his loyalty to the insurgents. It's almost hard to watch her hearing the words. Biggie is one of the few people who hasn't left her or turned against her. He's been at her side for fifty years, and now he's turning against her. It's hard not to think about the fact that Biggie is played by the same actor who plays John Druitt, the first man to twist a knife in Helen's heart until she couldn't feel it anymore.
Henry suggests that Biggie is just faking, but Helen won't accept that, not even for comfort. She knows he wouldn't do something this drastic without telling her. Helen thinks on it for a moment and, with a renewed vitality, rushes out of her office. Henry chases her down to the isolation cell where the telepathic Crixorum has been held since *Untouchable. She demands he wake up, despite Henry's insistence that he's in a medically induced coma. Helen threatens him... and the "Hollow Earth Osama" sits up and sneers at her, to Henry's shock.
The Crixorum admits that his power works even when he's unconscious, and he used it to pick away at the Big Guy's psyche every time he came in to check the machines. Eventually he was brainwashed without even knowing it was happening, and the doses were altered to return the Crixorum to wakefulness. Once he was at full power, he remapped Biggie's brain to make him do the insurgent's bidding. It wouldn't have worked on a human, but Biggie's species has an enlarged frontal lobe that makes them prone to trust. The Crixorum took advantage of that. The bastard! He says the remapping is permanent; the damage done to Biggie's mind is irreversible.
Will, Declan and Kate tell Helen about their suspicions, and Henry confirms no one on the itinerary is actually flying into Lisbon. The Lisbon summit is a decoy, but the terrorists know that and have decoyed the decoy. Addison is smugly going ahead with the summit in an unknown location, completely unaware it's still in danger. Helen decides to get the information as simply as possible: she goes Dark Side.
Helen returns to the Crixorum and demands the location. She begins to fill his chamber with gas, and he mocks her for trying to kill him. But that isn't her plan at all. The gas is a sedative, meant to knock him out for the operation. She had read about his race in the Praxian archives and discovers they tried wiping out Crixorums a long time ago. Removing the iduary gland from his brain will completely neutralize his powers, but it's a barbaric practice that left his ancestors lobotomized. Helen is unmoved and promises to take every precaution. Unless, of course, he provides them with the details they need.
The Crixorum reveals the real summit (and attack) is in Buenos Aires at noon the following day. She calls Will, Declan and Kate to head down there, and flies herself to South America in her bitching jet. The Crixorum also revealed that the attack will be carried out by suicide bombers... and Biggie is one of them.
The Gran Atlante Hotel in Buenos Aires is in total lockdown mode. Helen arrives and demands to be let in, but Addison blocks her. He tells her that he received all of Henry's messages, but he won't evacuate. He figures he has everything well in hand, but she warns him about underestimating them. She wants him to postpone the summit. He claims that would only be a victory for their tactics.
ADDISON: "You don't know much about dealing with terrorists, Doctor."
HELEN: "And you don't know much about dealing with Abnormals."
He claims any attempt to attack the hotel would be stupid, implying he thinks Helen is just worried that her friend will be hurt by his security. Meanwhile, a cutaway reveals that Biggie and three other Abnormals have infiltrated the parking garage by turning them all invisible.
Kate arrives as Helen is being escorted away from the security line. Luckily the guard who was supposed to be leading her away takes a break so she and Kate can have a casual conversation about how to get away from him.
HELEN: "We have to get into the hotel and past the security."
KATE: "The old fashioned way?"
The guards roughly escort them away, but Helen and Kate knock them out and slip through the fence while Addison jumps and squeaks. This is one of the things I really missed, with Agam being off the show. Helen and Kate don't get a lot of opportunities to work together, and it's a shame, because both actresses work very well together. Their mutual respect of each other comes through in every scene, and the characters have a very easy rapport in tense situations. Kate hasn't seen Helen in a year. Helen hasn't seen Kate in 114 years. And yet all she has to do is say "the old-fashioned way?" and they go to work with scary precision. It's little wonder that Helen gave Kate such a huge job as rebuilding Hollow Earth: Kate has the brains, balls and bravado to get things done. Addison, of all people, provides the context of their awesomeness when Will and Declan arrive.
WILL: "Where's Magnus?"
ADDISON: "Inside."
DECLAN: "You let her in?"
ADDISON: "Let her? No, I did not let her. She and her friend went all krav maga on my men."
Helen and Kate get inside the mostly-empty hotel, and they split up to find Biggie and the terrorists (worst band name ever). Biggie finds Helen and reveals he's strapped to a bomb, and Helen reveals her Achilles' heel: she cares about him. She loves him. "I'm your oldest friend" is not a valid counter-attack to "I'm going to blow you up." She pleads with him to remove the bomb vest, and it almost works, but the conditioning sets in. Right before he can detonate, Kate clocks him on the back of the head with a fire extinguisher (after *Hangover, that seems to be her go-to move).
Helen's relieved gasp of "Thank God" reveals that she knows she was not doing a good job. Kate saved her life - saved Biggie's life, too - by doing what Helen can't. She's the lancer, the fighter, the muscle of the team. She will punch first and ask questions later, even after her awakening down in Hollow Earth. She's the strength of the team, their Mr. Punchy. And nine times out of ten, that saves lives.
Now we're to the section the episode started on. Will and Declan, riding around the Argentinian jungle like a South Carolina governor can only dream about. Noon rolls around, and they get to a cliff just in time to see the hotel blow up with - presumably - Helen, Kate and Biggie still inside. This time the scene continues to show Helen and Kate in a van that just barely got out of the hotel. I may be overly sensitive, being from Oklahoma, but that building looked an awful lot like April 19, 1995. Although how many ways can you show a blown-up building? You're going to touch a nerve somewhere, sad to say.
The twist here is that everything is *not okay. Helen comes on the radio in response to Will's calls, and the first thing she says is "We need help." She's obviously hurt, and Kate is bloody, unconscious and covered with cuts. Helen reaches for her, but the seatbelt keeps her from getting too far.
Kate's been gone for a whole season. There are rumors of her return, yes, and the actress teased she wants to come back if there's a season 5. But that moment, with Helen reaching for her friend, there was doubt. A main character may have just died. We didn't know, and that was incredibly tense for fans of the character. Of course, this being TV, they very quickly revealed that she survived (after a pair surgeries and a week-long coma).
Will reveals that most of the hotel had been evacuated, but there were eleven casualties. As a result, most world leaders have called out for a war against Abnormals just as the terrorists hoped. The Big Guy, on the other hand, was getting better with the help of Helen's mermaid (who is using her telepathic skillz to put him back to normal). His memories are starting to come back, which is good, but regaining his senses means he knows what he helped cause, so he's taking it hard. The scene ends on a happier note: when Kate asks when she can go back to Hollow Earth, Will reveals that he'd done some reading and identified her new bracelet as a Herusian Promise Band from Garris and he offers his congratulations.
Helen, meanwhile, is in her office watching the Big Guy's suicide bomber tape. She quickly turns it off when he arrives to bring her some tea, but he knows what she was watching. She asks him to stay and asks him about his brainwashed claims that he was a prisoner. He denies it, but Helen wants to know if he's absolutely certain. He assures her that the Sanctuary is his home and always has been. But now he has to live with the bad things he did.
Helen takes the blame for what happened, since she exposed him to the Crixorum in the first place but Biggie won't hear it. She says that she knew there would be risks taking the Sanctuary rogue, but she never intended for him to pay the price (so in 113 years, she never considered there might be collateral damage to those closest to her? She also never considered that Tesla might end up on the opposite side of the war, even as subterfuge. Kind of makes you wonder what she *did consider). Biggie can't believe that he helped kill eleven people and Helen is the one apologizing, and he assures Helen that the blame is entirely his to bear. He gets up to leave, going back to business by telling her he'll give Henry the list of supplies they need. Helen counters by telling him to go himself. It's a small gesture of trust, but it's obvious it means a lot to him.
In the last scene, Biggie arrives at a Dark Alley. He hesitated in the car before he gets out and knocks on the rear entrance of some Shady Establishment. He gives the insurgency code phrase ("From below, we rise") and the bouncer lets him in. We're left to believe that Biggie has fooled everyone and is still dark side. No way, no how. His anguish in that last scene with Helen was too real to be faked unless he's become a diabolical evil bastard. The hesitation before he gets out of the car proves that's not true. All his talk to Helen about guilt and making amends proves that this is his way of keeping apprised of the insurgents and their plans.
Of course, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a *little bit concerned.
So that was the latest installment of the shows' Hollow Earth insurgency storyline. I don't mind it as much as some people, but I am ready for it to be done. SCIU and Lotus and Hollow Earth terrorists... I want good old fashioned Abnormal hunts! Enough with the conspiracies and government meddling. No more Addison. Let's just let *Sanctuary be Sanctuary. There have been times this season when it has felt like there aren't any Abnormals on the surface anymore. They are all just terrorists coming up from "below." This Hollow Earth thing has occupied about half the series at this point, so I think it's time to finally move on to the next thing. I can't wait to see what it is, I just hope the words "Hollow," "Earth" and "Praxis" get left behind when the dust settles.
Originally written for Geek Speak Magazine
Hm. We will cross that bridge when we get to it! For now, Acolyte! Recap, review. I still think that's a hard word to type. Acolyte. It's awkward. ~g~
"Acolyte"
04.10
Written by: Alan McCullough
Directed by: Lee Wilson
US Airdate: December 9, 2011
In short: Kate returns with news about a big Hollow Earth insurgent terror attack, and Helen must face the possibility that one of her closest friends is a traitor.
Recommended: Yes, sort of
"For thousands of years, the surface dwellers have kept us down. We suffer for their tyranny. Bear the scars of their brutality. I myself have been their prisoner for over fifty years. But the time of the uprising is at hand. From this day forward the occupiers shall be consumed by fire and drowned in blood. We will die, so that others may live. From below, we rise."
- Biggie's suicide video
The episode begins with a BIG ACTION MOMENT and then skips back to three days earlier. I hate that trope. It's like skipping to page 100 of a book, reading two pages, and then going back to fill in the blanks. I'll forgive them this time for a reason I'll get to later, but for now, I'll just skip to the real beginning of the episode.
Helen and Will are discussing a certain pair of Sanctuary residents who have an unusual dietary requirement: they slather the food on each other and then lick it off. That would be bad enough, but apparently they require an audience. She's tried every trick under the sun, but there's no substitute for a living, breathing voyeur. Biggie isn't available to take the bullet because he's halfway to Hollow Earth (picking up that thread from the last episode), but Will is spared by a call from Declan on the priority channel.
The call is a surprise contact by Kate, who has laboriously climbed out of the tunnels to relay some important information. A group of Abnormals had arrived back in Hollow Earth, and one of them came to her about a terrorist attack being planned on the surface. Fanatical Abnormals want to start an all-out war between Abnormals and humans, but they don't know the target. Her info comes from a man named Sephis, who said he heard it from a fellow Abnormal named Oren while they were out drinking. Will heads to London to check things out, and Henry scours their information on the Hollow Earth insurgents for any word of the imminent attack.
Will arrives to find that Kate and Declan have just found Oren, and he's waiting in an isolation room. Will goes right into the interrogation to see what he can find out about the attack. He refuses to talk, and says they're only making him offers to go home because they're afraid. In his mind, that means their tactics are already working. The insurgents believe they have an equal right to the surface and will get their part of it by any means necessary.
Back home, Henry is frustrated by roadblocks thrown up in his way. They've been cut out of all the big databases and he can't get in anywhere. There are some vague intelligence dispatches, but nothing helpful. Helen tells him to keep looking, and he suggests a Japanese IAS and asks her for help translating. So that confirms Helen definitely speaks Japanese. Before she leaves, Henry expresses concern that they haven't heard from Biggie yet. Helen is sure he's just between checkpoints since he can't exactly travel incognito, but Henry is skeptical.
Big Brother Declan uses CCTV footage to find a building Sephis frequented and figures that's where the terrorist group meets. They raid the warehouse and discover a bunch of still-fresh bodies and the places is trashed. Helen's idea is that the rebels killed their own people to prevent potential information leaks. Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead, and all that. Unfortunately, Helen also says the deaths only strengthen the theory of an imminent attack.
Kate finds a piece of a shipping document stuck on a dead man's shoe. The only letters on it are SBOA. Henry suggests running it through an algorithm, but Helen's brain works faster than that: she realizes it must be Lisbon (the Portuguese spell it Lisboa), and predicts they'll find a second cell there and tells Henry to do a search for anything about that country.
Back at the London Sanctuary, Kate and Will have a nice little heart-to-heart. Will invites her back, but Kate is too excited about being on the forefront of a new world being created. She feels like a pioneer, and the future is all that matters. Considering her past and the things she's done, it's not surprising she's enamored with the idea of a clean slate. It's also worth noting that this may be the first episode where Kate isn't wearing her fingerless gloves. She's very relaxed, calm, and bright; she's finally put some of her demons to rest. Will also notices that she's wearing a new bracelet, but she quickly goes back on-topic when he mentions Garris.
Henry admits that he's hacked into SIS, figuring they would know about anything big happening in Lisbon.
HELEN: "SIS...?"
HENRY: "Portuguese Security Intelligence Service. It's a lame acronym, I know, especially when you have a P, an I and two S's to work with."
HELEN: "Onward."
HENRY: "Anyway..."
He found encrypted travel itineraries that are decoded into a series of names. Included at the top of the list is Greg Addison, the douche who tried to take over the Sanctuary way back in *Untouchable. Helen recognizes two of the other names - Hagan Kiersted and Mashita Narumi - as people who deal with Abnormals. She figures they're all going to Lisbon for a summit to consolidate their activities under the banner of SCIU (Tesla is not on the list, for reasons that will become obvious later on in other episodes). Helen says they have to warn Addison. She may not agree with him, but she won't see him become a victim.
Will and Kate go back to Sephis and set him free. They claim it's obvious he won't help them, plus it's too dangerous keeping him at the Sanctuary after all his friends were killed. They show him pictures of the dead members of his cell to prove that he's not betraying them anymore by talking. Sephis agrees to help them in exchange for protection, but he claims not to know anything. Will mentioned Lisbon, and Sephis says they sent detonators to another cell, and he gives them the address.
Helen arrives at Addison's office in a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Addison hears his security officers hitting the floor and walks out to see what the ruckus is. It's Helen Magnus, in high heels and a skirt, casually tucking her hair behind her ear. The bodies of his people are scattered on the floor at her feet. She smiles politely at Addison.
HELEN: "Sorry. But I did warn them it was urgent that I see you."
Addison invites her in, and she reveals she knows about the SCIU summit. Addison is unmoved in the extreme. She warns him about the attack, which Addison hears with less concern than if she'd said the air conditioning in Conference Room B is a little hit-and-miss. She refuses to tell him where she got her information, and he admits he's surprised she's there at all because he thought the Sanctuary was behind it. Helen is shocked at the accusation and denies it.
When he realizes she really doesn't know what he's talking about, so he shows her his proof: photographs of the Big Guy at meetings with several Hollow Earth terrorists, looking very at ease and welcome.
ADDISON: "According to my latest intel, your Sasquatch is their new leader."
She refuses to believe it, citing his loyalty for the last fifty years. You don't need to go back that far. I've only known Biggie since the show premiered four years ago and this was completely and utterly out of nowhere. There was an obvious fish scent in the air, but she can't explain his actions. Addison tells her that, if he's innocent, she should bring him in for questioning. Helen is forced to admit she doesn't know where he is.
In addition to the photos, Addison has "a room full of recordings" of Biggie leading meetings. Really? A room full of recordings? How do you fill a room with recordings? The entire Beatles' catalogue wouldn't fill a room even if they were on eight-track. Sorry. I'm lashing out. Save Biggie! Addison admits her belief isn't his goal; he just wants her to know how serious the situation is.
ADDISON: "Your tall, hairy friend here is an enemy target. I am advising you to stay well out of my way. If you don't, I will come after you, too."
Helen reveals the news to Will, who also refuses to believe it (Team!Save Biggie). Will cites how upset the Big Guy got when the insurgents first showed up, and it doesn't make sense that he would join them now. Helen gives Henry the task of figuring out what's happening, and she warns Will to be on the lookout for Biggie and SCIU.
Will, Kate and Declan are at the Lisbon address Sephis' cell sent the detonators. They raid the place and, after the requisite shootout, they question the terrorists and come up empty. Will looks at their computers and finds that the insurgents have a buttload of information about the summit. It's too much information, and too precise, and he realizes it was all a decoy to fool the terrorists into attacking the wrong place.
Back home, Henry reveals that he changed the security codes to keep Biggie out. He went over Addison's pictures for evidence they had been doctored, but they were legit. As a last resort, he searched Biggie's room and found a flash drive. Helen is shocked at the invasion, and Henry looks disappointed in himself. Ryan Robbins tears it up in this scene. The show has never explicitly said that Biggie and Henry see themselves as brothers. They don't have to, because it's all over Henry's face. In this, and in *Veritas, he makes their relationship explicitly clear. He deserves kudos for making it feel so visceral.
Helen forces herself to watch the flash drive, and Amanda Tapping pulls out some fantastic reactionary acting as well as Helen watches her dear friend of fifty years declare his loyalty to the insurgents. It's almost hard to watch her hearing the words. Biggie is one of the few people who hasn't left her or turned against her. He's been at her side for fifty years, and now he's turning against her. It's hard not to think about the fact that Biggie is played by the same actor who plays John Druitt, the first man to twist a knife in Helen's heart until she couldn't feel it anymore.
Henry suggests that Biggie is just faking, but Helen won't accept that, not even for comfort. She knows he wouldn't do something this drastic without telling her. Helen thinks on it for a moment and, with a renewed vitality, rushes out of her office. Henry chases her down to the isolation cell where the telepathic Crixorum has been held since *Untouchable. She demands he wake up, despite Henry's insistence that he's in a medically induced coma. Helen threatens him... and the "Hollow Earth Osama" sits up and sneers at her, to Henry's shock.
The Crixorum admits that his power works even when he's unconscious, and he used it to pick away at the Big Guy's psyche every time he came in to check the machines. Eventually he was brainwashed without even knowing it was happening, and the doses were altered to return the Crixorum to wakefulness. Once he was at full power, he remapped Biggie's brain to make him do the insurgent's bidding. It wouldn't have worked on a human, but Biggie's species has an enlarged frontal lobe that makes them prone to trust. The Crixorum took advantage of that. The bastard! He says the remapping is permanent; the damage done to Biggie's mind is irreversible.
Will, Declan and Kate tell Helen about their suspicions, and Henry confirms no one on the itinerary is actually flying into Lisbon. The Lisbon summit is a decoy, but the terrorists know that and have decoyed the decoy. Addison is smugly going ahead with the summit in an unknown location, completely unaware it's still in danger. Helen decides to get the information as simply as possible: she goes Dark Side.
Helen returns to the Crixorum and demands the location. She begins to fill his chamber with gas, and he mocks her for trying to kill him. But that isn't her plan at all. The gas is a sedative, meant to knock him out for the operation. She had read about his race in the Praxian archives and discovers they tried wiping out Crixorums a long time ago. Removing the iduary gland from his brain will completely neutralize his powers, but it's a barbaric practice that left his ancestors lobotomized. Helen is unmoved and promises to take every precaution. Unless, of course, he provides them with the details they need.
The Crixorum reveals the real summit (and attack) is in Buenos Aires at noon the following day. She calls Will, Declan and Kate to head down there, and flies herself to South America in her bitching jet. The Crixorum also revealed that the attack will be carried out by suicide bombers... and Biggie is one of them.
The Gran Atlante Hotel in Buenos Aires is in total lockdown mode. Helen arrives and demands to be let in, but Addison blocks her. He tells her that he received all of Henry's messages, but he won't evacuate. He figures he has everything well in hand, but she warns him about underestimating them. She wants him to postpone the summit. He claims that would only be a victory for their tactics.
ADDISON: "You don't know much about dealing with terrorists, Doctor."
HELEN: "And you don't know much about dealing with Abnormals."
He claims any attempt to attack the hotel would be stupid, implying he thinks Helen is just worried that her friend will be hurt by his security. Meanwhile, a cutaway reveals that Biggie and three other Abnormals have infiltrated the parking garage by turning them all invisible.
Kate arrives as Helen is being escorted away from the security line. Luckily the guard who was supposed to be leading her away takes a break so she and Kate can have a casual conversation about how to get away from him.
HELEN: "We have to get into the hotel and past the security."
KATE: "The old fashioned way?"
The guards roughly escort them away, but Helen and Kate knock them out and slip through the fence while Addison jumps and squeaks. This is one of the things I really missed, with Agam being off the show. Helen and Kate don't get a lot of opportunities to work together, and it's a shame, because both actresses work very well together. Their mutual respect of each other comes through in every scene, and the characters have a very easy rapport in tense situations. Kate hasn't seen Helen in a year. Helen hasn't seen Kate in 114 years. And yet all she has to do is say "the old-fashioned way?" and they go to work with scary precision. It's little wonder that Helen gave Kate such a huge job as rebuilding Hollow Earth: Kate has the brains, balls and bravado to get things done. Addison, of all people, provides the context of their awesomeness when Will and Declan arrive.
WILL: "Where's Magnus?"
ADDISON: "Inside."
DECLAN: "You let her in?"
ADDISON: "Let her? No, I did not let her. She and her friend went all krav maga on my men."
Helen and Kate get inside the mostly-empty hotel, and they split up to find Biggie and the terrorists (worst band name ever). Biggie finds Helen and reveals he's strapped to a bomb, and Helen reveals her Achilles' heel: she cares about him. She loves him. "I'm your oldest friend" is not a valid counter-attack to "I'm going to blow you up." She pleads with him to remove the bomb vest, and it almost works, but the conditioning sets in. Right before he can detonate, Kate clocks him on the back of the head with a fire extinguisher (after *Hangover, that seems to be her go-to move).
Helen's relieved gasp of "Thank God" reveals that she knows she was not doing a good job. Kate saved her life - saved Biggie's life, too - by doing what Helen can't. She's the lancer, the fighter, the muscle of the team. She will punch first and ask questions later, even after her awakening down in Hollow Earth. She's the strength of the team, their Mr. Punchy. And nine times out of ten, that saves lives.
Now we're to the section the episode started on. Will and Declan, riding around the Argentinian jungle like a South Carolina governor can only dream about. Noon rolls around, and they get to a cliff just in time to see the hotel blow up with - presumably - Helen, Kate and Biggie still inside. This time the scene continues to show Helen and Kate in a van that just barely got out of the hotel. I may be overly sensitive, being from Oklahoma, but that building looked an awful lot like April 19, 1995. Although how many ways can you show a blown-up building? You're going to touch a nerve somewhere, sad to say.
The twist here is that everything is *not okay. Helen comes on the radio in response to Will's calls, and the first thing she says is "We need help." She's obviously hurt, and Kate is bloody, unconscious and covered with cuts. Helen reaches for her, but the seatbelt keeps her from getting too far.
Kate's been gone for a whole season. There are rumors of her return, yes, and the actress teased she wants to come back if there's a season 5. But that moment, with Helen reaching for her friend, there was doubt. A main character may have just died. We didn't know, and that was incredibly tense for fans of the character. Of course, this being TV, they very quickly revealed that she survived (after a pair surgeries and a week-long coma).
Will reveals that most of the hotel had been evacuated, but there were eleven casualties. As a result, most world leaders have called out for a war against Abnormals just as the terrorists hoped. The Big Guy, on the other hand, was getting better with the help of Helen's mermaid (who is using her telepathic skillz to put him back to normal). His memories are starting to come back, which is good, but regaining his senses means he knows what he helped cause, so he's taking it hard. The scene ends on a happier note: when Kate asks when she can go back to Hollow Earth, Will reveals that he'd done some reading and identified her new bracelet as a Herusian Promise Band from Garris and he offers his congratulations.
Helen, meanwhile, is in her office watching the Big Guy's suicide bomber tape. She quickly turns it off when he arrives to bring her some tea, but he knows what she was watching. She asks him to stay and asks him about his brainwashed claims that he was a prisoner. He denies it, but Helen wants to know if he's absolutely certain. He assures her that the Sanctuary is his home and always has been. But now he has to live with the bad things he did.
Helen takes the blame for what happened, since she exposed him to the Crixorum in the first place but Biggie won't hear it. She says that she knew there would be risks taking the Sanctuary rogue, but she never intended for him to pay the price (so in 113 years, she never considered there might be collateral damage to those closest to her? She also never considered that Tesla might end up on the opposite side of the war, even as subterfuge. Kind of makes you wonder what she *did consider). Biggie can't believe that he helped kill eleven people and Helen is the one apologizing, and he assures Helen that the blame is entirely his to bear. He gets up to leave, going back to business by telling her he'll give Henry the list of supplies they need. Helen counters by telling him to go himself. It's a small gesture of trust, but it's obvious it means a lot to him.
In the last scene, Biggie arrives at a Dark Alley. He hesitated in the car before he gets out and knocks on the rear entrance of some Shady Establishment. He gives the insurgency code phrase ("From below, we rise") and the bouncer lets him in. We're left to believe that Biggie has fooled everyone and is still dark side. No way, no how. His anguish in that last scene with Helen was too real to be faked unless he's become a diabolical evil bastard. The hesitation before he gets out of the car proves that's not true. All his talk to Helen about guilt and making amends proves that this is his way of keeping apprised of the insurgents and their plans.
Of course, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a *little bit concerned.
So that was the latest installment of the shows' Hollow Earth insurgency storyline. I don't mind it as much as some people, but I am ready for it to be done. SCIU and Lotus and Hollow Earth terrorists... I want good old fashioned Abnormal hunts! Enough with the conspiracies and government meddling. No more Addison. Let's just let *Sanctuary be Sanctuary. There have been times this season when it has felt like there aren't any Abnormals on the surface anymore. They are all just terrorists coming up from "below." This Hollow Earth thing has occupied about half the series at this point, so I think it's time to finally move on to the next thing. I can't wait to see what it is, I just hope the words "Hollow," "Earth" and "Praxis" get left behind when the dust settles.
Originally written for Geek Speak Magazine