Dead Zone 4.8: "Vanguard"
Written by Juan Carlos Coto
Directed by James Read
In which a former student of Johnny’s turns out to be the inventor of a material that plays a part in Stilson’s future Armageddon, prompting Johnny to make a desperate move…
I’m actually on vacation this week (at least, part of the week), so I didn’t get to see this one uninterrupted. Nonetheless, I got to see most of the episode, and I was very happy to see a return to the underlying mythology of the series. It’s still very complicated, and one is never really sure if Johnny is getting anywhere in his crusade against Stilson, but it’s always a lot of fun!
I happen to enjoy these episodes more than most of the stand-alone installments, but I almost always prefer “mythology” episodes because of the depth that they provide to the writers in terms of material and past continuity. There’s something to be said for a really strong anthology-style episode, and this series has more than its share; however, being able to turn back to Stilson and his machinations every so often is a good thing.
Oddly enough, my sister finds this aspect of the series to be boring. She has little patience for the chess game between Johnny and Stilson, probably because Johnny rarely makes any headway. But that’s part of the reason that I love these episodes. They highlight many of the drawbacks to Johnny’s ability. It’s easy for the writers to use Johnny’s ability as a crutch in some of the stand-alone installments, since he needs to be right most of the time to retain credibility. (How he’s proven right, and the lengths he must take to decipher his visions, generate the better part of the drama.)
It’s a lot harder for Johnny to be “right” and effective at the same time when dealing with the Stilson episodes. After all, Stilson must get away somehow, and if Johnny were to stop Stilson from bringing on the end of the world, how much fun would that be? Thus each side must gain some sense of victory, even if it’s fleeting. Stilson must always be one step ahead, and Johnny must deal with the fact that changing things based on visions is a gamble, at best.
This episode is a perfect example. It turns out that Alex, basically Johnny’s former star pupil, will invent a material that has unexpected (at least by some) military applications. Those applications enable a more compact and stable design for the core of a nuclear weapon. Thus nuclear war is made simpler, just in time for Stilson to become President of the United States. The implication is that when Stilson destroys the world, this weapon is the key; without the material that Alex invents, that future is prevented.
There are actually a lot of holes in that logic, and the episode deals with the most obvious of them: why is Alex the only person who can invent the material? Sure enough, anyone with the basic design can carry the work forward. Perhaps more troubling is the assumption that Stilson’s endgame, intentional or not, can be prevented by changing one small detail. Yes, it’s clear from the visions that the material becomes an important element in the future apocalypse, but there’s nothing to prevent something else to take its place if this material is not invented.
The point is that there are clearly many paths to be taken to the same future. In this case, the fact that Alex is out of the equation is meaningless. One is left to wonder if he is simply fulfilling a function that would have been completed by someone else. In other words, perhaps the future is meant to happen, regardless of whatever Johnny tries to do, and the key elements will happen with or without his intervention. Only the names change.
So for me, this episode is fun because both sides are playing the odds in a game that they don’t completely understand. They all know that Johnny and Stilson are at odds. Many of them understand the stakes. Stilson is playing to win on his own terms, regardless of what he may or may not intend as a future consequence. Johnny is trying to prevent that, but he makes decisions on limited and conflicting information. Neither really knows if they are making the right moves, because they can’t see the whole board. It lends this episode, which has a relatively standard plot, a bit more depth and drama.
Aside from the interplay between Johnny and Stilson, which is always fun, there’s the little matter of Sarah’s news. Things were complicated enough when it was Johnny, Sarah, Walt, and JJ. JJ was essentially a continual trigger for Sarah’s torment. Now that things have more or less settled, there’s a new complication. In the previous episode, Sarah seemed to be thinking about her relationship to Johnny again. Now there’s a new child in the mix, and it’s clearly Walt’s. Sarah would have a clear reason to commit herself to Walt and her family, and that could be something that the writers intend to use to explore whether or not Sarah is really ready to let go of Johnny as anything other than a friend.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 3/4
Final Rating: 9/10
Directed by James Read
In which a former student of Johnny’s turns out to be the inventor of a material that plays a part in Stilson’s future Armageddon, prompting Johnny to make a desperate move…
I’m actually on vacation this week (at least, part of the week), so I didn’t get to see this one uninterrupted. Nonetheless, I got to see most of the episode, and I was very happy to see a return to the underlying mythology of the series. It’s still very complicated, and one is never really sure if Johnny is getting anywhere in his crusade against Stilson, but it’s always a lot of fun!
I happen to enjoy these episodes more than most of the stand-alone installments, but I almost always prefer “mythology” episodes because of the depth that they provide to the writers in terms of material and past continuity. There’s something to be said for a really strong anthology-style episode, and this series has more than its share; however, being able to turn back to Stilson and his machinations every so often is a good thing.
Oddly enough, my sister finds this aspect of the series to be boring. She has little patience for the chess game between Johnny and Stilson, probably because Johnny rarely makes any headway. But that’s part of the reason that I love these episodes. They highlight many of the drawbacks to Johnny’s ability. It’s easy for the writers to use Johnny’s ability as a crutch in some of the stand-alone installments, since he needs to be right most of the time to retain credibility. (How he’s proven right, and the lengths he must take to decipher his visions, generate the better part of the drama.)
It’s a lot harder for Johnny to be “right” and effective at the same time when dealing with the Stilson episodes. After all, Stilson must get away somehow, and if Johnny were to stop Stilson from bringing on the end of the world, how much fun would that be? Thus each side must gain some sense of victory, even if it’s fleeting. Stilson must always be one step ahead, and Johnny must deal with the fact that changing things based on visions is a gamble, at best.
This episode is a perfect example. It turns out that Alex, basically Johnny’s former star pupil, will invent a material that has unexpected (at least by some) military applications. Those applications enable a more compact and stable design for the core of a nuclear weapon. Thus nuclear war is made simpler, just in time for Stilson to become President of the United States. The implication is that when Stilson destroys the world, this weapon is the key; without the material that Alex invents, that future is prevented.
There are actually a lot of holes in that logic, and the episode deals with the most obvious of them: why is Alex the only person who can invent the material? Sure enough, anyone with the basic design can carry the work forward. Perhaps more troubling is the assumption that Stilson’s endgame, intentional or not, can be prevented by changing one small detail. Yes, it’s clear from the visions that the material becomes an important element in the future apocalypse, but there’s nothing to prevent something else to take its place if this material is not invented.
The point is that there are clearly many paths to be taken to the same future. In this case, the fact that Alex is out of the equation is meaningless. One is left to wonder if he is simply fulfilling a function that would have been completed by someone else. In other words, perhaps the future is meant to happen, regardless of whatever Johnny tries to do, and the key elements will happen with or without his intervention. Only the names change.
So for me, this episode is fun because both sides are playing the odds in a game that they don’t completely understand. They all know that Johnny and Stilson are at odds. Many of them understand the stakes. Stilson is playing to win on his own terms, regardless of what he may or may not intend as a future consequence. Johnny is trying to prevent that, but he makes decisions on limited and conflicting information. Neither really knows if they are making the right moves, because they can’t see the whole board. It lends this episode, which has a relatively standard plot, a bit more depth and drama.
Aside from the interplay between Johnny and Stilson, which is always fun, there’s the little matter of Sarah’s news. Things were complicated enough when it was Johnny, Sarah, Walt, and JJ. JJ was essentially a continual trigger for Sarah’s torment. Now that things have more or less settled, there’s a new complication. In the previous episode, Sarah seemed to be thinking about her relationship to Johnny again. Now there’s a new child in the mix, and it’s clearly Walt’s. Sarah would have a clear reason to commit herself to Walt and her family, and that could be something that the writers intend to use to explore whether or not Sarah is really ready to let go of Johnny as anything other than a friend.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 3/4
Final Rating: 9/10
posted by John Keegan | 17:06
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home