CW-THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-ep 10-THE CITADEL

 

CW-THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-ep 10-THE CITADEL

 

BTW I’m guessing the name of Aldus Crick was derived from the Crick the guy that solved the structure of DNA and the Aldus DNA worldwide mapping project.

 

We backtrack a bit as we see Stephen’s meeting with his father. He tells Stephen to find Simon Plane and to find his body. He tells Stephen that if the Founder is after Stephen then it is not just the TP species in danger. He leaves and makes Stephen leave, too—or it is the others pulling him out. Cara can’t see anything in Stephen’s memory and suggests it was all not real. John disagrees somewhat and Stephen has TIM bring up stats on Simon Plame: born April 6^th, 1964. He was one of the original break outs. Stephen is going to bring his father home with or without their help.

 

Stephen goes home just in time for dinner. Luca tells him he looks like death. Mom has a new haircut and a new boyfriend, date number three is on the books. Cara catches the tail end of Morgan and John relating to each other after she gives him a haircut, “Less rebel, more rebel leader.” He thanks her and Cara looks suspicious. They talk about Stephen, Roger, and the fact that John killed Roger or shot him, even if Roger is out there. Cara tells him even if Stephen has forgiven John, it doesn’t mean his sins have been erased. John knows Stephen is going to do what he wants to. John wants to call a Council and tell the others the truth. Cara thinks it’s a bad idea.

 

The Citadel: (note: this might be the first scene in 2014 as this episode aired in Jan 2014 and the last episode, complete with Stephen’s limbo jaunt was in Dec (the 11^th) of 2013. A prisoner in the Citadel is a girl named Charlotte who is sitting on air; another is Errol who escapes with the help of another prisoner who cut off his hand and gave it, somehow to Errol to use when they cuffed him.

 

Stephen, at Ultra, meets ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Intelligence Computer Entity), the female voiced AI interface. Elizabeth Hurley (oh my God, see THE ROYALS!) voices Alice. ALICE’s instructions from his uncle is to lock him in and notify Jedikiah immediately if anyone tries to access that file.

 

Benjamin Hollingsworth, who I just noticed in the Christmas Movie Godwink: Meant For Love, plays Troy who was the agent who led the assault on Morgan in THANATOS.

 

When Jedikiah questions Stephen under ALICE, Stephen cleverly tells the truth using only truths without revealing specifics. Jed tells him that Roger was obsessed with reaching parallel dimensions, saw enemies where there were friends, and was a threat to his family. Jedikiah, during an alarm sounding about Errol, reveals (in a slip?) that Ultra has a prison, a research facility.

 

Errol wants the woman who lives in his former home to call his wife. The woman claims she doesn’t know where his wife is. Errol thinks she is lying and grabs her by the throat. Troy fires at Errol but Errol makes the bullet go back into Troy and it knocks him out. He also pushes Stephen (who puts his stun gun down) out of his mind. When he does this, the dishes in the place crack and break.

 

In the lair, there are seven TP (a black man, a light skinned African American woman or Latino), the older bearded man, a girl with long white hair, a man with a sweat hat on, and a boy or girl and also one other behind the African American man). They knew John lied to them. On the other side there are about ten others: the girl with pink hair, a blond man possibly with a pony tail or that might be an eleventh TP behind him, a shorter possibly Asian man or girl, a taller scruffy man, an African American man near Cara and wearing a hoodie, someone behind John that we can’t see, another girl with brunette hair, possibly Irene or another girl, another girl or man possibly with blond hair and another taller man who looks a bit like John. In other shots we see an African American girl with a bun, the hoodie guy might be Latino, there’s a girl with long straight hair, and John’s told them all the truth. There are a few others I can’t pin down: the blond near the African man might be the white headed girl. There’s also another girl near Cara, dark skinned. Cara sticks up for John when the African man wonders why they should let him stay here. There’s a TP girl in a camouflage shirt. There’s a taller guy with long hair and a chubby face. Russell also sticks up for John. We learn the outspoken African American’s name is Mike! He won’t challenge John for leadership. The guy behind Mike is a bright blond. Mike nominates Cara for leader and a vote.

 

The way they do a vote is that they have candles out on a table and the TP can telepathically move the candle to either Cara or John. John gets five votes including Russell’s but Cara gets some 14 or 15 votes and becomes the new leader!

 

At the Chinese restaurant, Stephen explains about the escapee and the Citadel. Russell always thought that was some made up place, a Tp boogey man. Cara tells them the Annex Experiments originated there, mutilation, deprivation, all testing the limits on their powers, and in some cases expanding their powers.  

 

Cara wants to find Errol and thus find the Citadel to go to Jedikiah’s house of horrors. “We’re turning up the heat on Jedikiah starting now.” 

 

When the date beeps to let Stephen’s mom know he’s there, Stephen says if he has VANITY license plats he’s ending this now. He also tells her she’s way too cool for this guy after the makes a GHOSTBUSTERS reference. Robert Gant of QUEER AT FOLK and a thousand other things (including a movie that was touted as the gay James Bond but really fell far short of that premise, KISS ME DEADLY with Shannen Doherty), comes in as invited in by Luca. He is named Peter.

 

After Cara makes plans to attack the armored vehicle that might carry Errol back to Ultra, Troy and Stephen pick up Errol, who was found lurking around his wife’s old office like a lost dog by the local PD. Stephen telepaths to Cara that they just picked him up. They are at a warehouse in Hillside and Parsons. Errol begs Stephen to kill him rather than go back to the Citadel.

 

Mike and the unnamed girl are stopping the tank from moving. Russell appears in the passenger seat and punches the driver. John appears and punches out Troy when he gets out of the tank. Cara also appeared. Stephen asks, “So what’s the plan? Punch me in the jaw again?” John, to make it look real, shoots Stephen in the shoulder! Cara and John vanish with Errol.

 

Jedikiah puts all teams on breakouts on hold and orders all teams on Errol Chasem. He smiles that Stephen took a bullet for Ultra. At the lair, Errol knocks Russell down with his mind sounds and asks Cara where Ultra is hiding his wife. John thinks he should be cuffed as he’s powerful and unstable. And frankly, quite scary. The wife lives in Phoenix now and teaches high school. She remarried three years ago. She thought he was dead. Errol remembers teleporting to a safe place, Trinity Church in East Village. TIM pulls up the radius of possible teleports given Errol’s range of powers. Cara holds his hands to try to get to his memories of where the Citadel is: seeing clues, a doctor with a newspaper (one of 19 that begin with the word NEW in NY and Connecticut). Cara saw an apple orchard, which TIM pinpoints can only be in New Cane. Or New Canaan.

 

As Cara and John talk, we see a TP man playing pool; a shorter TP male with glasses and a girl (?). Cara wants John to stay here and run pinpoint as eyes and ears, the way she’s done for him in the past. She also wants him to guard Morgan as a hostage sort of: as collateral. She will use her if things go sideways. He has her back but he thinks they should skip a beat and wait. Cara thinks that will give Jedikiah time to put in reinforcements.

 

Jedikiah orders Stephen to have more pain meds, putting him out of commission for a while. He suspects that real target of the TP is the Citadel. Trying to get out of bed, later, Stephen telepaths to John that Jedikiah knows and he falls out of bed. Errol, Cara, Mike, and the girl go into the Citadel but Russell gets a message over a guard (that they knocked out)’s walkie talkie that they know. Errol can’t get the doors open with the controls, someone is overriding the system. A kill squad teleports in but Russell, Mike, and the girl attack them. Errol and Charlotte seem to have a bond. The fight scene is impressive as are the teleporting during it and Russell’s moves are particularly impressive. He teleports to Cara, who’s trying to use a fire extinguisher to smash the glass to Charlotte’s cage. Although the girl and Mike teleport away, Russell is grabbed from behind but he manages to teleport, too. Cara breaks the glass.

 

In another tense and well-played scene, Cara bargains with Morgan’s life when Jedikiah shows up pointing a gun at Cara and Charlotte (who had a doll of some kind). In the second shocking scene of the series, Errol, who was helping the others escape the fight, appears in front of Cara and Charlotte. “I’m not going to let you hurt them,” he says before Jedikiah shoots him in the head.

 

Okay, John appears and has a gun at Jedikiah’s head which allows Cara and Charlotte to teleport away but now I call BULLSHIT. John can easily shoot Jedikiah dead but does not. “You know one day Cara’s going to order me to kill you. And I won’t say no.” BULLSHIT. He should have shot him there and then. He teleports as Jedikiah turns around with his gun to kill John.

 

SIDENOTE: I don’t know where they’re getting these shots of New York City (and in a few episodes Montauk) but they’re beautiful and different, many overhead shots.

 

John’s words stop Cara from taking Morgan to Ultra in retaliation for killing Errol.

 

7:03 am: Stephen wakes up. Jed called his mom and told her that he fell asleep at his desk and she bought that. Jedikiah tells him that he has powers of persuasion and intuition. Again, I call BULLSHIT. Would Stephen’s mom, not an unintelligent woman, not only believe this BULLSHIT but allow Stephen to sleep at his job? She doesn’t know it’s Ultra?

 

Jedikiah then tells Stephen he was starting to believe Stephen was in on the TP plan and that John managed to only hit soft tissue when he shot him. Stephen rails against this and then asks who Simon Plame is. Jedikiah in a volley of sick exposition in a sick manner, proving he’s still a creepy bastard, tells Stephen that Simon suffered from an obsession over Roger and tried to steal Roger’s corpse. He shows Stephen a photograph of Simon dead. Jed killed Simon for trying to take Roger away from Jedikiah. Jedikiah tells him that he cremated Roger’s body himself and that Roger is dead and Stephen should accept it.

 

Stephen, defeated, tells the TP. Only John doesn’t buy it. “Jedikiah’s lies tell lies.”  If I could hug John right now, I would. I love him in this moment and it seems Stephen might, too. Russell also believes that John and Stephen are right but Cara doesn’t know. Stephen finds Cara and tells her that it is a pipe dream but it is his pipe dream. In an emotional moment, again, well-acted, Cara laments her first day as leader but Stephen bolsters her up. She didn’t get Errol killed…he sacrificed himself to get Cara and Charlotte out. She calls it a spin when he tells her that she gave Charlotte a life along with Errol, who saved them both. “Look, I took an actual bullet for you because I believe in you. I believe in both of us. You know I’m going to find the refuge or you’re going to build one right here.”  She jokes, “Or both.”  He repeats her. Together he doesn’t hate their odds.

 

When Stephen arrives home, Luca pats his arm and thinks the all-nighter at the office was probably a girl. Although Luca suggests otherwise (“…giving mom the full court press…”), Pete tells Stephen that he just walked in and brought the donuts. He did not stay the night. Stephen seems to try to read Pete’s mind but has a pain hit his head instead…

 

REVIEW: Again, despite some of the flaws noted above (John really should have killed Jedikiah) this episode hits a few emotional heights and lows. Errol’s death, thanks to good writing and acting, hits home. John, Russell, Cara, and Stephen’s dialog has almost NOT ONE wasted word or line of dialog in furthering the story, the relationships, and the plot. It’s almost perfect in a way. The fights are well done. I wonder what happened to Troy afterward (Ultra probably should have killed him already if the past episodes are any indication). Robbie Amell and really the whole main cast surpass themselves. Again, given this is the CW show, there is quite a lot of violence and violent thoughts and motivations and coming from the TP I am not sure I like that but if you accept it’s not THAT TP, it is ALMOST okay.

 

A word must be said about Jedikiah Price and his portrayer Mark Pellegrino. As written he might not come off as believable but Mark makes him so. He also gives him layers and depth, no easy task as he has to be the hated villain but with a life of his own, sort of. He’s re-established as the bastard that he is and his killing Errol is one of the worst things he’s done. Mark continues to make him likable as when he smiles at Stephen when Stephen’s suffering from a bullet wound. That said, it does make him seem quite the dupe that he seems to know Stephen’s being duplicitous and yet…he also seems to believe him. To his credit, again, Mark seems to make us unsure what he believes and if he has something MORE up his sleeve in store for Stephen and the rest! It’s a shame in a way that this show didn’t continue. I would have liked to have seen where this would have gone, though I do think it went a bit off the rails later on in the season.