Saturday, June 15, 2013

Summer DVR Dump: Continuum 1.02: "Fast Times"

“Not everything I do is going to make sense to you. But it is important. And I can’t do it without you.”
- Kiera

We start in the future, but not quite 2077. It is Kiera’s first day as a Protector and she’s getting her CMR installed and her fancy tech. Back in the present, Alec is messing with his connection end of things to firm it up and they discuss boundaries a little (Alec can see Kiera when she’s looking at herself in a reflective surface. And I mean yes, she’s an attractive woman and he’s a 17-year-old boy so there’s that. She gets to the station and completely forgets about the funeral for the officers slain by Liber8. Kiera meets the department’s resident geek, Betty, and assures Carlos that Betty has no competition from her. We know she’s married with a son but she can’t tell Carlos that so she lets him believe she’s gone through a recent break up. The Inspector (Carlos’s boss) calls him into a meeting with some suits and it’s starting to look a little sketchy for Kiera’s cover.

Meanwhile, Liber8 is busy preparing to return to their time. Everyone but Matthew Kellogg is on board with the plan. He wants to stay. He sees injustice and problems that they can help fix here and now. The corporations don’t have power and they can warn the current populace about what’s to come. Ultimately, the rest of the group votes to go home. I have to say, Kellogg is my favorite of the terrorists. It probably has something to do with how his character develops throughout the rest of the season. Anyway, the rest of Liber8 arrives at a power substation, takes out the guards and tries to use the time travel device to go home.

Back at the precinct, Kiera’s cover is blown. A Sergeant from Portland PD has arrived and clearly doesn’t know Kiera. So Carlos has to cuff her and process her. But she has a plan. She gives Alec covert instructions to use her thumb print and his hacking skills to make the cover of Linda Williams look good but to make a version of the truth that’s believable. As Carlos is bringing her down to holding, the power goes out (thanks to Liber8) and she ends up using her suit to electrocute Carlos and cuff him to the inside of the elevator.

Kiera makes her escape and then we get a rather amusing scene of her trying to get into and drive a car. Alec manages to help her through most of it but it was pretty funny when she turns on the windshield wipers when he tells her to put on her seatbelt. It’s also rather chuckle-worthy when the rest of the police department find Carlos handcuffed to the elevator. I didn’t know Victor Webster had comedic chops. I’m impressed. Meanwhile, Kellogg is making good on his intention to stick around and blend in. He makes a very large deposit into an investment account. Kiera makes it to the substation and learns two things; there’s at least one guy dead and witnesses placed five people matching the descriptions of Liber8 leaving the substation. Unfortunately, the cops are looking for her so she hightails it out of there. Alec has to take a little interlude back to his house to get breakfast and briefly interact with his mom, stepdad and stepbrother. I feel like these little trips out of his techno-cave sometimes interrupt the flow of the rest of the episode.

Once back at his set up, Alec discovers there’s a really famous scientists whose work may help Liber8 power the time travel device. Too bad the terrorists get to him first. Carlos is trying to find way too many people at once. He’s looking for Kier and Liber8. Betty is working on tracking whoever hacked the Portland PD server (hi Alec). Carlos doesn’t have to search long for Kiera because she calls him. She pays the scientist’s wife a visit and learns where Liber8 has taken him. She tells Carlos she’ll text the address in twenty minutes and that she’s deep cover with the organization.

We catch up with Kellogg again. This time, he’s looking at the house he grew up in. It’s a little creepy because the girl who lives there now (who I think may somehow be related to him) is all “we live here now”. Things are heating up at the university linear collider. Kiera arrives and leaves a trail of breadcrumbs (so to speak) for Carlos to follow. She plans on hopping a ride with Liber8 home. Alec is sad that she’s ready to leave. With some awesome stealth tech in her suit, Kiera manages to sneak up on one of the terrorists and states terms of a ceasefire. She’s gets to tag along and they let the scientist go free. With him clear, the group steps in as the device powers up. Things don’t go according to plan (obviously). Kiera flashes to the future as she’s tucking her son in, promising to give him two tuck-ins on the nights she has to work late. Her husband is a bit annoyed that she’s basically made a promise she knows she can’t keep. I really don’t like him. Back in the present, the device explodes and knocks everyone out for a few seconds. Lucas tries to gather up the pieces of the device as the cops show up and a fire fight ensues. A handful of cops get mowed down by automatic gunfire but the terrorists make it out and Kiera allows herself to be arrested. The scientist, seeing Kier in cuffs, says that she was a hero and saved his life. But she still lets herself get processed. We get a montage of Betty and Alec working and Kiera finally has her sort-of truthful cover. At least she can go by her real name, now. We pretty much come full circle as Carlos shows Kiera everything in the station. She declines his offer of a ride home in favor of collecting her thoughts. And it is a good thing she does because she sees the lone piece of the device that Lucas couldn’t find. So obviously she’s going to have to nab that now. She and Alec have a brief conversation once she leaves the precinct about her facing the reality that she may never see her family again. I really like how their relationship is beginning to develop.

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