TOWER PREP “Election” Review

TOWER PREP “Election” Episode 7 – Student body elections are often the highlight of the year for many students, and Tower Prep is no different. The elections are well underway when one of the two candidates for student body president is mysteriously taken ill while dissecting a rat during biology class. Ian, of course, sees this as another potential escape, but before he can volunteer to run, Gabe offers himself up instead, sure that his power of persuasion will help him win the election. Enlisting CJ and Suki to help, Gabe embarks on his campaign. Meanwhile…

Yeah, you knew there was a meanwhile, and this one is a biggie.

Ian is getting sick. Very sick. The illness, whatever it is, affects his skills, taking away what makes him special, and the “disease” is spreading. CJ, Suki and other students are falling ill. While investigating the cause of illness, Ian ends up in the nurse’s office. She checks him over and takes a blood sample. The nurse is worried, she’s seen it all before, and goes to the headmaster and tells him she thinks “it’s” happening again; Chemica Desin is back. While trying once again to find answers in the nurse’s office, Ian discovers his own medical file that shows he tests positive for the mysterious Chemica Desin. He steals the remainder of his blood sample and takes it to a student who can “see” the sample and what is there.

That is when the two story lines, the mystery illnesses and the student body elections, come crashing back together in a potentially pandemic disaster of a way. The campaign buttons Gabe has been handing out are infected with the agent and he plans to toss out more than a hundred at a student rally.

The answer to the mystery of Chemica Desin was an interesting twist for Tower Prep. And it was a fairly heavy topic considering that this is the Cartoon Network. The idea of human experimentation and what turned out to be essentially chemical warfare (on a very small scale) was handled very well. The motivation behind the attacks and the creation of the agent in the first place was played against the larger world in a way that was believable and workable within the structure of the story.

The writers really did a great job with “Election”. I was actually guessing about the actual cause of the epidemic until the second commercial break, and then once they revealed Chemica Desin, the method of distribution kept me guessing right along with Ian and the gang. The mystery in this episode was particularly well structured and (to my shame) I didn’t guess the “who done it” until the reveal at the end of show. That’s hard to do, and they really caught me by surprise with the who and why.

I will say where they went from there was more than a little predictable, but I can forgive the writers for that, overall “Election” was a great episode and Tower Prep just keeps getting better and better.