Dead Zone 4.10: "Coming Home"

Written by Christina Lynch and Loren Segan
Directed by Mike Rohl

In which an incident at the retirement home where Sarah’s father resides, somehow involving a “shadow man” stalking the halls at night, results in a connection between father and daughter…


After a couple of great episodes that restored my interest in the season, this week was surprisingly weak. There were some good moments, but the story never felt like it came together as well as the writers had hoped. It’s probably not shocking to many that the stronger moments centered around Johnny and Bruce, and that the weakest scenes involved Sarah and her father.

The core idea seems to be a healing for Sarah and her relationship with her father, much as the previous episode seemed to be all about Johnny and his father. The difference is that Sarah’s father is alive. That actually doesn’t help the episode very much. In the previous episode, Johnny was forced to take a personal journey of discovery to understand what happened to his father.

In this case, Sarah’s father is front and center. Unfortunately, as capable as Ed Asner might have been in the past, he has no chemistry with Nicole at all. This only serves to highlight some of the weaknesses in the Sarah character and Nicole’s portrayal. While I’m one of the first to point out that Sarah is unfairly maligned and that Nicole has been the victim of some problematic plotting choices, the woman can act when she has something or someone to work with.

Two scenes made this very clear to me. The scene between Johnny and Sarah, where she discovers that Johnny has had a vision of her mother’s death, is very well done. There was the appropriate mixture of hope and horror on Sarah’s face at the notion that Johnny’s ability would allow him such insight. Clearly this isn’t something she’s discussed with Walt, let alone anyone else, and it brings them closer together at a rather delicate time. Just when these two seem to be growing into a friendship, they’ve gotten closer than ever.

On the other hand, when Sarah and her father finally find each other at the end of the episode, it’s painful to watch. There’s a clear attempt to make the emotional connections work, but there’s just nothing there. The fake crying gets old very fast, and I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief and let it happen. It was jarring, to say the least.

If the rest of the episode had been as strong as the Johnny/Sarah scene, then the episode might have overcome the lack of chemistry between Asner and Nicole. But the main plot is rather murky, and by the final act, it’s not all that compelling, either. I found myself struggling to work out the plot, which is usually not a problem for me, and the whole “Shadow Man” element was just plain silly.

It felt like the writers didn’t believe that the drama of Sarah’s family would justify an entire episode, but that the resulting closeness between Johnny and Sarah was something that they needed to work out. So element after element was tossed into the mix, from what I can tell, to make the episode complex enough to fill the hour. The problem is that it didn’t come together as well as it could have, and so once again, I’m left wondering if the writing staff underwent too much of a changeover this season, resulting in a lack of focus.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 1/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4

Final Rating: 5/10