“Gaslighting” is a term that refers to getting someone to think a certain way and to do things the person wouldn’t normally do. This pretty much sums up tonight’s episode, with virtually everyone on Dr.. Rosen’s (David Stathairn) team seeing things that aren’t real and thus, forcing their hand in certain situations, even if those actions mean their doom.
The focus of the episode is on a hospital where one of Dr. Rosen’s former patients, Adam Gordon, is apprehended after suffering what appears to be a breakdown and trying to “rescue” his sister from the morgue. It turns out not to be that simple. Lately, the hospital is rumored to be the house of gloom and doom, with all sorts of strange occurrences, it now culminating with Bill (Malik Yoba), Rachel (Azita Ghanizada), Cameron (Warren Christie) and even Gary (Ryan Cartwright) hallucinating, primarily about people who are in need of help.
At the end of my last review, I complained somewhat about the lack of Gary moments in the past few episodes. Well, I guess you should be careful what you wish for, because tonight we got a double-dose of Gary – not that we would ever complain! Gary is hallucinating just like the others, but he sees Anna. All of the other hallucinations involve people who are in desperate situations and who are calling for help. They are led into precarious situations in the hope of helping the person, only to be coaxed into trying to kill themselves. Interestingly enough, the only exception is Gary. Gary sees Anna, but Anna doesn’t appear to be trying to lure Gary to his doom. Instead, she only comforts Gary, and in the end, helps Gary lead Dr. Rosen to the patient in the hospital who is causing all of the weird anomalies and the hallucinations. But, that’s not to say that Anna’s hallucination isn’t necessarily a threat, and I will revisit that in the moment.
In the end, Dr. Rosen uncovers a piece of equipment, a photo-stimulator, used on coma patients in the hospital that may be the root cause of the problem. The writers beautifully tie this into the secondary storyline of the episode of Dr. Rosen using Nina (Laura Mennell) into extracting information from Senator Burton (Lauren Holly) about Stanton Parish (John Pyper-Ferguson) and why he gives so generously to her campaign. Stanton Parish is apparently the source of the devices, and somehow, someway, it can alter one’s brains – and not just Alphas’ brains, but ordinary people too. That raises a very good question: did the device evoke a response in the comatose boy, who was already an Alpha, or does the device somehow alters an ordinary brain into one similar to that of an Alpha? If someone like Stanton Parish can actually alter someone into something indistinguishable from an Alpha, what prevents him from creating his own army of Alphas? It’s a very interesting question and would explain his power and why everyone, including Anna, is so terrified of him.
But, the best part of the episode is at the very end, and this is where Gary shines, as he has done in so many past episodes. After Dr. Rosen wakes up the comatose patient, Anna is gone once again, but Gary has discovered a new way to honor Anna and her memory. At this moment, we see Gary tweeting:
“@Anna_Lives The revolution is coming #Anna_Lives #Alphas
First, let’s be clear – I don’t believe Anna is alive. Instead, a statement like the above on Twitter is a way to keep Anna and her memory alive, long after death. However, “the revolution is coming” part scared me a little bit. Is Gary just re-iterating one of Anna’s many mottos? Or, is Gary contemplating joining her cause? After all, one of the best ways to honor a deceased person is to join their movement and make sure it never dies.
I certainly hope Gary isn’t heading in that direction, but the writers certainly did a great job of promoting the @Anna_Lives campaign on Twitter, and I’m sure it has plenty of the fans fired up about now. One thing is for certain – it should make for a hell of a second half of the season with the unfolding of the Stanton Parish storyline and the outcome of this Anna revelation for Gary.
Alphas airs on Monday nights at a new time – 8 p.m. EST on SyFy.
Geeky computer and math nerd by day and TV fanatic by night. My beats are The Walking Dead, The Strain, Person of Interest, Z Nation, and anything that most people would call freaky. Editor-In-Chief and Lead Writer of TVGeekTalk.com
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