THE EVENT “Face Off” Season 1 Episode 15 - I’m actually a little annoyed after this week’s episode. While I understand the need to allow for current events in television and while I’m not usually oversensitive when fiction mirrors fact, NBC are just being ridiculously obtuse. As if the threat of a nuclear meltdown during the threat of a nuclear meltdown wasn’t bad enough, now they have a pseudo-earthquake.*
(This was only made worse by the horrified expressions after Sterling announces the Washington Monument has fallen – a moment that was clearly supposed to be shocking but only managed to sound petty in light of current events.) Granted, earthquakes are always occurring, but after New Zealand and Japan surely a few weeks buffer time would have only been polite?
Maybe I’m just overreacting, I don’t know. What do you think, dear reader?
[* I understand that this pseudo-earthquake was the same event (ha!) that hit that warehouse earlier in the series and not an actual earthquake, but one can't deny that it seemed very earthquake-ish.]
But onto the episode itself.
Vicky and Sean are in France but thankfully there were no awkward green screen shots of them in front of the Eiffel Tower. Instead we had cheesy green screen driving, but at least they looked pretty. They go to meet an old friend of Vicky’s, a Frenchman with an almost incomprehensible accent, and there are hints that Vicky’s diggin’ Sean. I won’t lie, this excited me, if only because them randomly making out would brighten up future episodes. Sometimes, it’s the little things in life, eh?
Dempsey is in France to oversee the opening of a tomb that, it’s hinted, has alien links dating back thousands of years. The head archaeologist couldn’t resist taking a peek though, so he has to die. (Who needs a curse of the pharaohs when there’s ‘old man with gun’?) And here we have our big reveal – humans have ‘guardian angels’ and Dempsey is linked to them somehow. (That tomb scene was very The Fifth Element-y.)
This can really only go a few ways: we’re aliens, we’re part-alien or aliens have been influencing us for millenia. Possibly time traveling aliens a la The 4400. (Sidenote: are Sophia and co from earth’s future?) While I would love to see a fresh take on any of these scenarios, I doubt The Event will bother.
The best part of this episode was the big climax at the end. Thomas is dead, folks! I’m more upset about this than I thought I would be. The only interesting thing about the aliens was this antagonistic love/hate, push and pull relationship between Thomas and Sophia. It was a great juxtaposition seeing her switch from mother to opposition (and vice versa) over the course of a conversation (however limply those conversations were written).
So now we’re left with the new alien dynamic, Sophia shifting from passive to aggressive. Presumably they will soon be ready to start bringing people from their home planet to earth, but will she try and get Martinez on side beforehand? And can she send Leila away or something? That girl is the most pointless character in this show. (And perhaps the most amusing – we spend 10 episodes trying to get her sister back, only for Leila to leave her with a stranger while she goes to hang around with the cool kids, all wide-eyed and bland.)
And because I apparently haven’t been harsh enough yet: the direction in this episode was distractingly bad, with awfully framed shots and artsy effects (i.e. Simon through the decorative window glass). Wikipedia has Academy Award winner Janusz Kamiński down as the director, which surprised me. Maybe he should stick to cinematography.
I feel like I should probably say something positive, so I’ll end by pointing out that The Event not only bothered to address the Simon Lee issue (see last week’s review/comments) but also revealed him to be an alien. This is a great move plot-wise. What will Martinez do? Will Simon lead him to Sophia? Roll on next Monday!
What did you think of ‘Face Off’? Let us know in the comments below!
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