Summary: Flashbacks show Fusco being drawn into being a dirty cop by Stills. Reese gets a new number but finds he is too late and the POI, Nelson has been poisoned and will die. Reese decides to help him get vengeance on the man who killed him and they kill the man responsible with poison. Fusco is being investigated for being a dirty cop and he is forced to tell Carter what he has done. Carter takes a while to come around, but she eventually helps Fusco by hiding Stills' body so that the evidence doesn't turn up.
The Good: The opening scene was pretty grisly and nicely set the tone for the episode. Fusco's gone through some rough things in his past and now it's finally catching up to him. It's great to see him face some consequences and Kevin Chapman put in one of his best performances here. The POI story was really rough (see: The Bad), but it had a clever premise. It's refreshing to see the POI actually die for once and it did a good job of setting up the ending now that we are aware of a virus attacking the Machine. The ending was pretty exciting as it looks like the Machine may have actually just shut down. The Bad: The POI story was lame. Nelson was a very uninteresting character and I didn't find myself invested in his revenge story. He didn't come off as a character who was looking for vengeance and that prevented me from wanting to see him pay back the man who killed him. Speaking of the man who killed him, the show really seemed to like referring to Nelson as a dead man because they mentioned it over and over to the point that it was really annoying me. It seems that this storyline existed more for these clever lines of dialogue rather than an actual story. The POI storyline all feels too easy as well. Reese continually suggests that they may be too late which feels so awkward since he has never mentioned something like this in the past. It feels forced to promote the idea that the Machine is giving numbers late. Furthermore, Reese simply knowing that Nelson would die was way too simple (he could easily recover, also Reese could just go help him). The final revenge kill was way too easy. The villain goes into a tedious monologue just so Nelson could pull out the rug from underneath him and let him know he's going to die. It's wholly unsatisfying and doesn't end the story in a good way. Fusco's story doesn't work the way it should. I didn't like the flashbacks very much. They seem to suggest that Fusco was always a good guy and he only got roped in with the bad people because Stills was his friend and he was simply loyal. This completely destroys the redemptive arc he went through in season 1 where a heartless thug made a turnaround and became a good cop. I was very displeased that Fusco wasn't presented as an outright dirty cop in these flashbacks in an attempt to earn more sympathy. Carter's reaction to Fusco being dirty wasn't good either. She has already dealt with the fact that bad people can turn things around when she started working with Reese. To have her go through the exact same arc here is repetitive and it doesn't really have much of an impact. Furthermore, Carter being so shocked at Fusco's past is ridiculous. Fusco already suggested a really dark past, so surely Carter could have easily imagined something worse just by thinking about it for a few seconds. The fact that Carter is able to get to Stills' body before the police is idiotic. There's no way she should be able to pull that off. The Unknown: Did the Machine fully shut down at the end? How will Finch recover it? What will happen when the numbers stop coming? What will Reese and Finch do? What will Decima do when the Machine shuts down? Best Moment: Probably the opening scene. Very little stood out. Character of the Episode: Fusco. Conclusion: This was a big disappointment. Fusco's story is so easy to tell, and it's beyond me how the show messed it up, especially after putting out a few really great episodes this season. Hopefully this is just a fluke and we will get back to good stuff int he final two episodes of the season. Score: 50
1 Comment
Joe Y
8/14/2020 03:33:43 pm
All we see of Fusco in the pilot is a dirty cop who is used to his role. It’s much more believable that Fusco fell down a slippery slope rather than joined the police a corrupt person already. It is also more consistent with his increasing respectability. The gradual nature of his corruption (you can be sure there were more incidents than the one we saw) and a giving up to a kind of despair about the impossibility of change is psychologically accurate as well.
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|