Any concerns you or I might’ve had about “Jericho” not being able survive for a full season are now officially wiped away with the news that CBS has given the show a full-season commitment.
Sweeeeeeet.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: this is due to CBS’s very wise move of placing the show as the only non-reality show in that timeslot. Good on them.
WARNING: If you missed this episode, head over to CBS’s Innertube and watch it now. Otherwise, we’re getting ready to spoil it all to hell for you.
So we’re four days after the bombs have dropped and one day after the fallout has cleared; people are finally starting to run out of gas, and the attempts to gather more are the major goings-on in the background of this episode.
Eric and his wife continue to have their problems; he pisses her off by having a beer at the bar rather than coming to help her at the clinic, then when he runs around town to get gas to power the clinic’s generators but is beaten to the punch by brother Jake (who, I swear, I hear someone call Jimmy this episode), she basically says, “Yeah, whatever.” So he promptly turns around and – figuratively speaking – spits in the face of her profession as a saver of lives by allowing the out-of-towner with radiation poisoning to have a drug administered that leads to his death. Hopefully, these two will just cut the ties that bind sooner than later and be done with it. Oh, and about the aforementioned out-of-towner, it was a little odd that Gail (Jake and Eric’s mom) seemed to latch onto the task of caring for him so adamantly; I’m wondering if there’s some reason for that.
The ongoing saga of Robert Hawkins and his family is unfolding too slowly for my liking; he’s become progressively more unsympathetic with each episode. In fact, he’s barely the same guy we met in the first episode. Since arriving in town, he’s quickly gone from Mr. Gung Ho to Mr. I-Don’t-Think-So. Obviously, he knows more than he’s willing to reveal – as further evidenced by the fact that he turned out to know the guy with radiation poisoning – but as a character, I wish they’d write him more consistently.
There’s a throwaway line in the episode that I really liked, where Jake and Stanley are trying to figure out who’s going to put the gas in the steel tank, and one of them says, “Remember those pacts we made to live to be a hundred?” It’s about time they once again touched on the fact that these guys have been friends for years upon years. (It was indicated when Jake first returned to Jericho.) I also wish they’d focus more the pairing of Jake and Heather, as we saw a bit of tonight; the flirtation between Skeet Ulrich and Sprague Grayden is nice and realistic.
Additional observations:
* Mark my words, Mayor Green’s cough is a death rattle.
* That paranoid deputy who’s suggesting that the tanks spotted last episode might be Chinese or Korean? He’s gonna end up killing somebody.
* The guy at the gas station being concerned about the fact that his bosses might show up and get mad that he’s given away the fuel was just silly.
* And as far as the complete stupidity of the rich teenagers having a big-ass party…well, I’ve made my annoyance of this subplot pretty clear. To paraphrase “Say Anything,” bitches stay with bitches, and, hey, what do you know? The bomb went off, and their mutant genes DID still form the same cliques!
I was legitimately surprised when Jake led the townsfolk to where the 20 sick people were, only to find them all dead. That was dark. But the way-too-motivational speech by Mayor Green took away any edge it had. Talk about getting CBS’ed.
First, let me apologize for the lateness of this blog; I was in Los Angeles on Wednesday and Thursday, arrived home on Friday morning after haven taken a redeye, and was basically useless all day yesterday as a result. And second, let me apologize for the title of this post, which is referencing a Prefab Sprout lyric that most of you have probably never heard. (It’s from a song on Andromeda Heights, if that helps.)
So on with the show…
Finally, things begin with a feeling as dark as this series really should be, with people either trapped in a mine, waiting in a basement, or out in a thunderstorm. We also get an idea of exactly how much time has passed since the bomb (18 hours), which is something that we never got a feel for last episode. When Stanley Richmond finally makes it back to his house – it’s his basement that Jake, Ashley, and Bonnie are in (actually, it’s Bonnie’s, too; she’s his sister) – there’s considerable concern that his exposure to the possibly radioactive rain has begun to poison him. He seems okay, though, but he takes a dose of iodine for good measure and makes it to the medical clinic without showing any symptoms; they still want to give him a once-over, though, resulting in the funniest line of the episode: “I’m getting tired of being stuck with needles. They’ll be sorry when my spider-powers kick in!” (He also has a post-bomb meet-cute with the accountant who was trying to take his farm away; his flirting results in Madame Accountant getting the second funniest line: “Okay, but you still owe the IRS $130,000.”) It’s somehow apropos that the guy in the mine who starts having a loud and violent attack of claustrophobia is the one who ends up having a heart attack and dying, but you can see that the loss of someone like that would be disconcerting. As a result of his death, Mayor Green and his political rival, Gray Anderson, have a brief and well-warranted angry confrontation; Anderson makes a valid point that the clinic’s shelter should’ve been better maintained, but the mayor’s follow-up – that he’s causing more harm than good by attacking the man who’s trying to keep the town inspired and that he deserves to have his ass kicked for it – wins the argument hands down.
The combination of half a dozen tanks heading toward Denver and the tuning in of an Asian television broadcast that shows how many bombs have been dropped around the US (that’s right, Robert is now no longer the only one who knows) freaks the town out enough that they send people in four different directions, in an attempt to find out how far the damage extends. Jake’s discovery of downed planes and a blocked bridge on the way to Wichita sends him back to Jericho…but with a flight data recorder in tow. It’s as disconcerting as you’d expect to hear what’s contained on the recorder, but the news that Emily’s fiancee is still alive is the kind of news that sounds too good to be true. Eric’s continued affair with the bartender, even in the midst of everything that’s going on, seems downright cruel to his wife…but, then, she’s been nothing but cruel to him, so perhaps it’s warranted. Meanwhile, Robert’s coming off as really paranoid, and I’m looking forward to finding out just how much he knows…and why he feels like he can’t tell the rest of the town.
The ending is uplifting without being schmaltzy, and I’m back to believing that this show has major potential, but I’ll still close with two complaints:
1) I’m already over the teenage characters of the series; anyone who’s still concerned about social status and maintaining their cliques after the bomb drops deserves to die of radiation poisoning.
2) The choice of pop songs for the soundtrack sucks ASS.
WARNING: If you missed this episode, head over to CBS’s Innertube and watch it now. Otherwise, we’re getting ready to spoil it all to hell for you.
I won’t lie to you, it never occurred to me that, when Episode 1 ended, Emily had run out of gas; I thought she was just freaked out because she’d come across a road covered with dead birds…but given that Episode 2 begins with her walking down the road with a gas can, I guess she HAD hit “E.” Anyway, Episode 2 is full of a few too many coincidences for my liking, but let’s look at the highlights before I start bitching too much.
Jake and Robert realize simultaneously that the townsfolk are gonna need fallout shelters…and fast. The radiation’s blowing in from Denver, and it ain’t gonna be good when it gets there. But Robert knows a rather suspicious amount about radiation…so much so that it’s clear that at least a few people are getting skeptical of his claim that “I was a cop in St. Louis, and we got a lot of training after 9/11.” Sure, dude. In no way does that sound fishy. (We do discover that he’s got a wife and kids, though, so whoever he is, at least he’s got a relatively stable home life.) It’s clear that a rain storm filled with lots of radioactive material is gonna arrive in about two hours time, and anyone who’s not undercover is gonna be in serious trouble. (Although “Jericho” isn’t by and large a funny show, there’s at least one laugh to be had when it’s discovered that there isn’t a single piece of information about radiation or atomic bombs anywhere in town that isn’t dated circa 1957. Nice pamphlet about “The Dangers of Fall-Out”!) Much of the episode is spent trying to figure out how to fit everyone in town into the two shelters, one under Town Hall and the other under the medical clinic…and it gets even worse when the one under the clinic turns out to be uninhabitable due to lack of ventilation. The only viable alternative is to have people go deep into the town’s salt mines, then dynamite the entrance shut and have someone come by post-storm and help them get out again. And on the topic of people knowing a suspicious amount about certain things, Jake sure knows a lot about how to set up explosive charges…
The local bar provides us with a few bits of information this episode. The accountant who was in town to audit a local farmer – yeah, she was in the first episode, but not even long enough for me to reference her appearance – asks the bartender of her being stuck in Jericho post-bomb, “Do you think God hates me?” Jake’s brother, Eric, finally gets to say something besides “sounds good, Dad” when he shows up and informs several pool-playing yahoos of the wonders of death by radiation poisoning; we also discover that he isn’t as happily married as we might’ve thought when he locks lips with Madame Bartender. We also get a few minutes here and there with young Dale, who’s apparently got the hots for his snooty classmate, Skyler…and while it might not be entirely mutual, by episode’s end, it looks like they might have more in common than they used to. And Jake’s dad suffers some sort of attack, but it’s not clear what kind.
Emily gets a lot of screen time when, during her stroll for gas, she’s picked up by the two escaped convicts masquerading as sheriff’s deputies. (Turns out the real deputies are in the trunk.) I’m pretty sure most real law enforcement officers don’t have handlebar mustaches like one of those guys did, but whatever. Emily eventually does figure out they’re not the real deal, courtesy of one of the aforementioned too-convenient coincidences; they leave her alone in the car, and while she’s by herself, someone in the sheriff’s department just happens to say over the radio how two convicts are on the loose and might have stolen a vehicle. Once she hears this, though, she begins to develop a plan, taking them to the Richmond farm, where Bonnie Richmond – who’s deaf but can read lips – assists her in getting a gun and sneaking out an upstairs window, eventually making her way back to the patrol car to use the radio and call for help. The good news: one of the channels she broadcasts on is being listened to by Jake, who bails out of the mine and sets off the explosion to seal them in before heading off to save Emily. The bad news: another channel she uses is being listened to by the fake deputies. Fortunately, right about the time they hear her, Jake arrives, and between the two of them, the two guys get dead real quick…and just in time for Jake, Emily, and Bonnie to get into the basement before the storm hits.
The ending of the episode provides a moment just as chilling as the one provided in the first episode. It’s set up when Robert, who’s manning the radio, picks up a message in morse code…but instead of telling anyone what he’s heard, he pretends to have heard nothing. Later, however, he puts a map of the U.S. on the wall, and he begins by placing tacks on both Denver and Atlanta, indicating the sites of known bombs…but, then, he places a tack on Chicago…and one on Philadelphia…and one on San Diego. As the episode fades out, we’re on a close-up of his hand, reaching in to get another tack…and another…and another.
Yikes.
It’s the first episode, so it’s a long one, kids…
Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich) arrives in Denver, Colorado, by train, then – in a parking garage neighboring the station – uncovers a car. At a glance, the car looks like it’s been under wraps for some time…and it’s confirmed when Jake drives from Denver over to his hometown of Jericho, Kansas, and gets a rousing reception from everyone he sees. He’s decidedly elusive about where he’s been, however; he tells one person he’s been playing minor-league baseball, another that he’s been in the Navy. He offers the latter explanation to his ex-girlfriend, Emily Sullivan (Ashley Scott); she’s not selling what he’s buying, but when she asks for the truth, he offers only silence. It turns out that Jake’s returned home to visit his grandfather and ask his family for money; his mother (Pamela Reed) is thrilled to see him, but he receives scorn from both his father (Gerald McRaney) and brother (Kenneth Mitchell) based on his past reputation for squandering both his money and his opportunities. Disheartened, Jake and his mom go to visit Jake’s grandfather…who, we quickly learn when they show up at a cemetary, is deceased. After the graveside visit, Jake’s ready to hit the road…so ready that even his mom can’t convince him to do otherwise; meanwhile, just as Jake’s driving out of town, a bus full of schoolkids from Jericho – chaperoned by their teacher, Mrs. Lisinski (Sprague Grayden) – are returning from a fieldtrip. Suddenly, her cell phone goes out…
…Jake’s radio goes abruptly to static…
…TV signals all over Jericho cut out…
…and, as as a couple of little children are playing outside, one of them spots a horrifying sight in the distance: a mushroom cloud, right in the general vicinity of Denver.
At this point, several different stories begin to unfold simultaneously. The bus hits a deer and crashes. Jake and another driver, both understandably distracted by the sight of a mushroom cloud in the distance, run right into each other…and Jake’s the only one that makes it out alive. Teenager Dale Turner (Erik Knudsen) finds an answering machine message from his mother…one that’s interrupted by the nuclear blast. Jake’s dad – who, by day, is Mayor Green – begins to round up the troops and maintain calm in Jericho…a Herculean task, given that everyone’s panicking, particularly the parents of the kids on the bus. He sends the sheriff and a few of his deputies out to search for the bus.
As Jake attempts to stumble back to Jericho, bearing a nasty wound on his forehead from his wreck, he comes across a pair of kids from the bus who plead with him to come back and help them. Back in town, all phone service is out and no-one’s responding on the police radio; people are on the verge of rioting and looting. We meet a new resident of the town: Robert Hawkins, a former cop from St. Louis who immediately leaps into the fray to attempt and assist the police. Mayor Green visits a local eccentric named Oliver, who has the only ham radio in town, in order to try and contact someone beyond Jericho and confirm or deny that Denver was only city to have been bombed…and, then, the power goes out all over town.
Jake makes it to the bus, where he finds that a little girl suffered major throat trauma when they crashed; he surprises both the kids and Ms. Lisinski – make that Heather – by performing an emergency tracheotomy and saving the girl’s life. Meanwhile, it looks like the sheriff has found the kids, until we realize that the bus he’s on used to be full of convicts…and is now empty; moments later, he’s shot and killed, his uniform stolen by an unseen party. D’oh! Dale finally stops listening to his mother’s answering machine message in the darkness of his house, taking it over to the Green’s house and playing it for them. “I’m so sorry, Dale,” says Mrs. Green, “I didn’t realize your mother was in Denver.” His heart-stopping reply: “She wasn’t. She was in Atlanta.”
Jake starts the bus and, even with what’s clearly a pretty bad concussion, begins to drive the kids and their chaperone back to town…not that it’s such a great place to be. Dale’s trying his best to assist his employer at the grocery store in preserving her refrigerated and frozen goods – it’s obvious he sees her as a surrogate mother – but he’s pretty much the only person doing anything noble. The townsfolk are completely freaking out, trying to full their vehicles with gas and get the hell out of town. Hawkins offers the suggestion that they use highway lights to illuminate the otherwise-dark town, and it pays off; the sudden light momentarily stuns folks into stopping their panic, but it doesn’t last. Local mayoral candidate Gray Anderson uses the moment to rally the townspeople…and demand answers and solutions from the mayor. Green tries to calm them, but he’s got no answers to their questions. He gets a reprieve when Jake pulls up with the busload of kids, and, in the wave of excitement from the crowd, the mayor asks them to place their trust in him and he’ll do his best to get them the answers they all want.
Seems like a pretty uplifting ending, right? Nah. The episode actually ends with Emily, who’s been driving to pick up her fiancee, having to stop her car when the road is filled with the bodies of fallen birds. Breathlessly, she asks, “What’s happening?”
Yeah, right, like they’re going to answer THAT in the first episode…
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