“Assassin”

Well, four episodes in and we’ve finally taken a step towards mediocrity. And that’s huge. Sad but huge. While “Assassin” is nowhere near a classic episode, it does avoid any catastrophic incidents and does play up what the show did offer in characterization.

The most flawed aspect of the episode, is a pitfall that will most likely plague the rest of the series. Flash and Dale’s relationship is awkward enough — their alone time is simply dreadfully wrong. I mean worse than Anakin Skywalker-Padme wrong. It’s embarassing and while they are trying to go for the Rachel-Ross thing in a sci-fi verse, it simply doesn’t work. One wants them either to get it over with already, or move on.

Ok, getting the worst out of the way, I’ll go into the rest of the episode.

We open with Zarkov and Baylin interacting humorously in Zarkov’s lab. It’s a unique dynamic and one I would hope we’d see more of. A rift opens up unsurprisingly, but what’s worse is the alarm goes off and the show wants to keep reminding the viewers what it is. Trust me, four episodes in, we know what the rift alarm is.

The rift opened on a street in town. Flash and Baylin go to check it out, but find nothing alien in the square. Flash notices that a nearby pizza parlor has a security camera that happens to point out into the street. Huh? What are they taping? But whatever, we move on. Flash gets Dale to flash her press pass and her pretty face and that is enough to get a copy of the tape.

On the tape they discover the rift opening and what appears like Flash’s father come through. Flash of course is ecstatic, and Dale is the voice of reason, trying to gird Flash for what she thinks will be a disappointment. Flash heads for home, sure that’s where his father would go.

Upon arriving home, Flash does not find his father. Dale tries to comfort him in a cringe inducing, god awful sequence that partially fueled my rant prior to this review/recap. As things get awkward, there is a knock on the door and coincidentally enough (PLOT DEVICE WARNING!) it’s Joe, Dale’s fiance. Joe is there because someone hiacked a car and drove it to Washington, DC. The victim described the suspect to the police artist and sure enough, it’s Flash’s dad. But please let’s not try to figure out how Joe knew what Flash’s dad looked like.

Flash talks to Zarkov about what’s in Washington and Zarkov reveals that Dr. Gordon used to make trips to Washington, but he didn’t know much about the trips. He could come up with the name of a Dr. Landry that Dr. Gordon used to meet with.

In Washington, “Dr. Gordon” gets to Landry first and ends up using Mongo technology to drain Landry’s brain.

Flash and Baylin head to Washington sparking jealousy in Dale. As they make it to the office building where Dr. Gordon would go, the security guard refuses to acknowledge whether Dr. Landry works there. It is a humorous sequence between the guard and Baylin, but ultimately fruitless. Baylin decides to take matters into her own hands as she starts scaling the office building before the office explodes.

Dale checks in with the knowledge that Landry’s body was found an hour ago. In the carnage, Flash is able to sneak a view at the log in log, and sure enough Landry had checked in, which Flash notes is impressive for a corpse.

Back to square one, as Zarkov sees a picture of Landry, and knows that he’s seen her before. He pulls out a picture of Dr. Gordon, Landry and a third scientist, Dr. Mary Hiller. Zarkov knows a lot about her as she had Zarkov committed to Flash’s surprise. In only a semi-Lassie-like jump to conclusions, they figure that Hiller will be the next target so they go to save the day. It does make some sense that they are attacking the people who worked with Dr. Gordon on the Portage Initiative. But after one victim, that’s still a long shot. But of course it’s right.

Upon arrival they see that Mary Hiller is being drained by Mary Hiller. Flash and Baylin attack, but the Patriot, with a shape changing gizmo, changes back into Flash’s father, distracting Flash long enough for escape.

Flash realizes that Zarkov must be the final target, given his rift knowledge as well, so he orders Dale to get him out of the lab and up to Flash’s parents cabin in the mountains. Flash and Baylin head back to discover a bomb in Zarkov’s lab that Baylin has to defuse in a unique manner. By eating the main component. Her Verden digestive system is supposedly extremely acidic and helps to neutralize the bomb. Honestly, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

Flash quickly realizes that his ride is stolen. Taking the RV they head after Dale, Zarkov, and the Patriot. The Patriot arrives first, obviously “dressed” as Flash. Dale is suspicious due to the callous way he treats his car, and quickly surmises that this isn’t Flash, and they run for it.

Flash and Baylin show up and there is a final confrontation until Dale grabs the Patriot’s gun. The Patriot of course gives himself away by telling Dale that she loves him and that he loves her.

We end with another “GET IT OVER WITH” moment.

Unfortunately we don’t see a whole lot of Ming and Rankol, who are big draws in the show, and when we do see them, they seem almost caricatures of themselves.

It’s not perfect, it’s not even good. But at least “Assassin” is watchable.

C-

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