“Bad Dreams”

“Bad Dreams” was a wonderfully woven story from start to finish weaving mystery, suspense, character development, and a deepening mythos into one cohesive tale that was fun to watch.

The first scene was as engrossing as it was disturbing watching our heroine push the mother of a young girl in front of an oncoming subway.

She awakens from the bad dream to see on the news, what she just had dreamed about.

The show spirals from there into a pit of Dunham’s despair and guilt as she tries to figure out what is happening to her and is she or is she not responsible for this woman’s death.

Then it happens again. She sits in a restaurant and suddenly helps an angry woman stab her husband. These things by witness are not involving Dunham but in her dreams she is the one responsible.

After watching enough video from the first incident and getting a description of a man at the second, she puts together a suspect whom she doesn’t recognize. After running through software they discover it is one Nick Layne, a former inmate at St. Judes.

Nick was born in Jacksonville, a trigger to Dunham for a possible case involving cortexiphan. We learn that Nick is basically a reverse empath. Whatever mood he is in will lash out and force others to be in a similar but even more heightened mood. Dunham realizes that his thought of suicide is what caused the woman to kill herself and the second woman to kill her husband.

The reason why Dunham is connected? It seems the two were partners during the experimentation period and thus they share quite a bond. This is really foreshadowed when they show Nick’s morning routine which is eerily similar to Dunham’s.

In addition is a really erotic sequence that visually works well. When Dunham decides to try to enter his head, the viewer sees Layne (as Dunham) picking up a stripper. I was pleasantly surprised at the subtle mannerisms Anna Torv displays as she acts like a sexually aroused male. It works well.

They are able to track Layne down and it turns out that Layne remembers everything about ZFT and their experimentations. He call Dunham, Olive which was her nickname we are to assume.

Afterwards Dunham confronts Walter about what happened and Walter is partially heartbroken with grief. We end the episode as Walter watches a grainy video of a depressed young girl…named Olive.

Great episode and movement forward.

A

OBSERVER MOMENT: The Observer can be seen walking past an ambulance at the end where Nick and his “followers” are standing on the roof.

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