Nikita
Episode 18: Broken
Home
By: Carlos Uribe
Nikita
is a show about a female spy who does missions for a secret,
undercover government agency.
Spoilers
Ahoy!
The
curse of the internet is that it's pretty hard to avoid spoilers.
It's not like these tidbits are actually leaked to the media as most
of the big websites get their tips straight from the sources. They
serve a purpose in that they can hype up an episode by promising a
big event to ensure fans watch it live. If you look for the latest
television news then chances are you'll stumble across hints of
what's going to happen from the writers and actors. A lot of time,
these spoilers tend to be harmless. They might promise a kiss between
two characters or a big plot development but they remain a mystery.
The only people who know what happened are very limited which makes
it slightly more difficult to guess what's going to happen. I'm sure
if you think hard enough then maybe you'll be able to stay ahead of
any show due to these spoilers but I don't do that. I like for shows
to surprise me so I try my best to not predict what's going to
happen. I don't always succeed. If a show is having a completely
predictable plot then of course I'm going to see what happens. It's
just my brain at work. If I've seen something a hundred times, I
would have to shut my brain completely off in order to be caught
unawares every time a new show does it. There are some spoilers where
it's impossible not to guess. For instance there was a teaser on
TVLine where it was hinted that a major character was going to die
this episode. I like to read the episode descriptions released by the
networks (on wikipedia and thefutoncritic) and it had struck me how
Sean wasn't slated to appear in them. With that “hint” revealed,
I was able to figure out that Sean was going to die days before this
episode was scheduled to air. The problem with that spoiler is that
the answer was already out in the open. If this was a season finale
then I would have been on the edge of my seat to find out who was
going to take a bullet. Since this is near the end of the season, I
had future episodes to look at. So the lesson here is that the
marketing machine that uses spoilers to build up hype needs to be
better at which hints it hands out. Knowing someone is going to die
adds tension. Knowing who is
going to die robs the moment from the shock and therefore the
emotional impact isn't as effective.
The
thing is I'm not even sure telling us somebody is going to die was
really necessary. I guess it confirmed the life-and-death stakes of
the situation to anyone who thought all of our heroes would escape
the crisis alive. I'm not sure these doubters needed to be told that
a character would actually be killed. This is for two reasons. The
first is that they'll be completely surprised when it happens. This
is especially true since Sean doesn't die until after it looks like
our heroes have managed to get away with their lives. He had been
shot but this is only revealed after the antagonists were defeated.
Just when you think they were safe, Sean died. Knowing this means
that it didn't work as well for me. I knew he wasn't safe so I didn't
get lulled into that false sense of security. I imagine the people
who managed to stay away from the spoilers and who didn't think
Nikita would actually kill a good guy were surprised. The second
reason is that if I owned a television to watch live then I would
have been tuned into the CW. The cliff-hanger from the last episode
was so good at setting up the imminent crisis that I had to see how
it was going to shape up. Nikita is captured by Amanda, Alex has
staged a coup before losing it, and Owen is after the black box. The
cliff-hanger worked in spades, the narrative momentum had me on an
adrenaline high, and I couldn't stop thinking what was going to
happen next. Even knowing that Sean was going to die didn't quench my
thirst of this episode. I went in expecting a great episode and I got
it. It's just a pity that the ending with Sean's death couldn't work
for me because I knew it was going to happen.
This
was a pretty big episode and it could have easily served as a season
finale. The good news is we get several more episodes before the end
of the season. This is an episode that could have had a big event
before reverting to the status quo. This doesn't happen. The
narrative momentum doesn't die but it actually moves forward towards
the next episode. This is a pretty significant achievement by the
writers. How were they able to accomplish this? Let's tackle the
coup. The coup was unfortunate for everyone. Nikita couldn't expect a
rescue team, Owen was stuck, and most of our heroes are now in
hostile Division territory. Alex suffers a mild mental breakdown as
she tries to save everyone. I mean everyone. She hates the idea of
bloodshed even as the coup can't help but fall into it. The coup does
get defeated. The leader is killed and their organization quickly
breaks down. The members of Division who want to leave are allowed to
do so. The remaining members stick around but I get the sense that
this is now a skeletal crew. Division is now a mere shadow of what it
used to be. Amanda has managed to effectively cripple the
organization in her manipulation of Alex. What's worse for our heroes
is that Sean dies. So basically a major good guy dies and Division is
weakened. The coup might have been over but the damage is done. Now
they have to find a way to find the rogue agents, stay alive, and fix
Alex's brain.
They
might also have to deal with Nikita. She spends the episode with
Amanda. At first, it's their usual banter where they try to get under
each other's skin. It's fun but the episode has other ideas. Amanda
basically puts Nikita in the mental chair. This is so that Nikita can
basically experience Amanda's origin story. At first, we're led to
believe that Nikita is actually playing as Amanda. She finds out that
Amanda had a twin sister that was being experimented on by their
father. The dad was trying to fix the brain so that soldiers wouldn't
come back from war with PTSD. This meant isolating the soldier's
emotions from their brains so that they wouldn't feel the horrors of
war or their consequences. They basically would have no conscience.
Nikita tries her best to save the twin sister to prove to Amanda that
people can be saved. Only the twist is that Nikita wasn't stepping
into Amanda's shoes but into her twin sister's. The experiment had
been successful and Amanda killed her sister. It's a pretty big twist
that actually caught me by surprise. As for the experiment, it
explains why Amanda is capable of being so ruthless. Her brain is so
messed up that it can't actually process the horror of her actions.
It might have stunted her growth. So Nikita now knows Amanda's
backstory. The dangerous implication is that while Nikita was
reenacting Amanda's past, her own brain was being messed with.
Consider me intrigued and a bit scared.
Broken
Home is a pretty great episode of Nikita. The action scenes are
great, I loved how it kept the narrative flowing, and the status quo
was definably changed by the coup. I like how these big plot
movements have actual consequences rather than going back to the
same. The third season might have begun a little slow but it's moving
at a breathtaking pace. I wouldn't be surprised if the next few
episodes give us room to breath but so far Nikita continues to prove
why it should be a must-watch series for anyone who enjoys spies and
action.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please be respectful of people's opinions. Remember these reviews are MY opinion and you may disagree with them. These are just TV shows.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.