TERRA NOVA “Vs.” Review

TERRA NOVA “Vs.” Season 1 Episode 9 – With an opening reminiscent of the first scene of Men in Black, we see a little dragonfly flying over Terra Nova reporting to Mira at the Sixer camp. The simply titled “Vs.” actually got to the point rather quickly. It seems like the opening scenes before the first commercial break always just have been annoying family squabbles at the Shannon household, but we got that out of the way pretty quickly and get right into the meat of the episode very fast. Not only does Shannon find out about a body that was supposedly hidden by Taylor, but he actually finds the location and digs up the body all before the first commercial break! Slow down, Terra Nova!

The other story that was going on is the Terra Novans going out to try to find the Sixers and figure out how Mira is talking to the future. I really have no idea what their plan was here. Were they going to storm out into the jungle with all of their fancy jeeps and motorcycles and…what? Find the Sixer camp, ask nicely to speak to Mira, and then hope she just tells them exactly how she talks to the future? I mean, best case scenario they happen to take them by surprise even with their noisy jeeps and machinery, and then they’re able to capture Mira, but then what’s going to make her spill her guts about her fancy future machine? Good plan, guys.

So you know that inconsequential dragonfly from the opening? It turns out that it was being used to communicate between Mira and her spy. So it looks like the Sixers had Terra Nova bugged. Hahaha. Hoo. Man, that was a good one. Hmm. Anyway, the smart English guy did some little scientific wizardry to figure out that this dragonfly could be traced back to the spy who sent it. Well, they traced the dragonfly, and whose house do you think it goes to? That’s right, the Shannons!

It turns out that this whole thing was just a ruse put on by Taylor so he could get Jim alone and tell him to stop chasing after the one-armed skeleton case. This led to possibly the biggest scene of the season so far in the way of explanation and exposition. Learning that Taylor actually murdered one of his best friends in order to keep control of Terra Nova, and outlawing his son in the process, was a huge insight into the kind of person he is and what lengths he’ll go to to keep his colony safe. We even found out what those drawings at the waterfall meant that we saw way back in the pilot!

After the last few episodes haven’t really been up to snuff, it was great to have an installment of Terra Nova that really reminded us of the overarching mythology that the pilot episode promised to us. I thought the drawings at the waterfall would be a mystery well into the series, but it’s already been explained away! Getting another glimpse at Marcus Taylor in the wild, looking wistfully at the fireworks over his dad’s colony, was a great little reminder that he’s out there and that he’s still working hard to get the portal going both ways. I’m very excited to get more on this story, and hope we get it soon!

Random Thoughts:

- I wish they didn’t call their celebration the “Harvest Festival”, as it just reminded me of the much better Harvest Festival on Parks and Recreation last season. Rest in peace, Li’l Sebastian.

- I like how the big revelation about the guy with the missing arm was learned by watching a little kids play.

- I was hoping that we would find out that Josh had the emitter and was communicating with the Sixers. I wish we had a good reason to lock that kid outside the gates and throw away the key.